Iran forces kill three more protesters in western province

PARIS: Iranian security forces killed at least three protesters on Saturday in the latest violence against demonstrations sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, a rights group said.

The country´s clerical leadership under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is facing its biggest challenge since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, in the two months of civil unrest since Amini´s death in custody on September 16.

The state has responded with a crackdown that Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights said in an updated toll had left at least 378 people dead, among them 47 children.

Hengaw, a Norway-based rights group which monitors abuses in Kurdish areas, warned the situation was “critical” in the town of Divandarreh in the western province of Kurdistan, where government forces had shot dead at least three civilians.

Protesters have been killed in 25 of Iran´s 31 provinces, IHR said on Saturday -- including 123 in eastern Sistan-Baluchistan and 40 in Amini´s home province of Kurdistan.

Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian of Kurdish origin, died three days after her arrest in Tehran by the notorious morality police over an alleged breach of the Islamic republic´s dress code for women which includes the mandatory hijab headscarf.

Protests raged overnight in the town of Bukan in Kurdistan, where Revolutionary Guards opened fire on family members mourning a slain protester and taking his body from hospital before burying it in an undisclosed location, Hengaw said. Activists accuse Iran´s security forces of carrying out secret burials of protesters they have killed, to prevent more violence from flaring at their funerals.

“Last night, after Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces attacked Shahid Gholi Pur Hospital in Bukan, they seized Shahryar Mohammadi´s body and buried him secretly,” Hengaw said.