Women join protests in Iran’s Sistan-Baluchistan province

PARIS: Women in Iran´s Sistan-Baluchistan province on Friday joined nationwide protests sparked by Mahsa Amini´s death, in what a rights group called a “rare” move in the staunchly conservative southeastern region.

Online videos showed dozens of women on the streets of the provincial capital Zahedan holding banners that declared “Woman, life, freedom” -- one of the main slogans of the protest movement that erupted in mid-September.

“Whether with hijab, whether without it, onwards to revolution,” women clad in black, body-covering chadors chanted in videos posted on Twitter and verified by AFP. Women-led protests have swept Iran since Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian of Kurdish origin, died following her arrest in Tehran for an alleged breach of the Islamic republic´s dress code based on sharia law.

Security forces have killed at least 448 protesters, with the largest toll in Sistan-Baluchistan on Iran´s southeastern border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to Iran Human Rights, an Oslo-based non-governmental organisation.