US President Joe Biden swore solidarity with Iranian women on Wednesday when eight people were reported dead in the increase in protests over the death of a young woman arrested by the Morality Police.
Speaking to the United Nations shortly after a challenging speech by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Biden saluted the protesters while renewing his support to revive the nuclear agreement with Tehran.

“Today we stand with brave citizens and Iranian brave women who are currently demonstrating to secure their basic rights,” Biden told the General Assembly.

The public’s anger has been blazing in the Islamic Republic since the authorities on Friday announced the death of Mahsa Amini who was 22 years old, who had been detained for allegedly wearing a hijab hijab in a “inappropriate” way.

The activist said the woman, the first name Kurds, was Jhina, had suffered a fatal blow to the head, a claim that was rejected by officials, who had announced an investigation.

Some female demonstrators by challenging to take off their headscarves and burn them on a campfire or symbolically cut their hair before cheering a lot, video recordings spread on social media have been shown.

“Not for the hijab, not for turban, yes for freedom and equality!” The protesters in Tehran heard singing in a general meeting that had been echoed by solidarity protests abroad.

Protest filling cities, especially in North Iran, for the fifth night in a row -Wednesday, with activists reporting clashes in cities including Urmia and Sardasht.

In South Iran, a video recording that is said to be from Wednesday shows a demonstrators burning a giant image on the side of the building General Qassem Soleimani, Commander of the Revolutionary Guard who was killed in the 2020 US strike in Iraq.

Iranian state media reported that street demonstrations had spread to 15 cities, with the police using tear gas and arrested to dissolve the crowd up to 1,000 people.

The rights group based in London Article 19 said “is very concerned about the report on the use of the power that violates the law by the police and security forces of Iran,” including the use of life ammunition.

The demonstrators threw stones at security forces, burned police vehicles and trash bins and shouted anti-government slogans, Irna’s official news agency said.

“Death to the Dictator” and “Woman, Life, Freedom,” protesters can be heard shouting in video footage that spreads outside Iran, although there are online restrictions reported by Netblock Monitor internet access.

‘Double standards’

In his UN speech, Raisi pointed to the death of native women in Canada and Israeli actions in the Palestinian territory and “savagery” of Islamic state groups against women from religious minority groups.

“As long as we have this dual standard, where the attention is merely focused on one side and not all of the same -time, we will not have true justice and justice,” Raisi said.

He also pushed back to the western requirements to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement, insisting that Iran “did not try to build or get nuclear weapons and weapons like that had no place in our doctrine.”

British Foreign Minister James cleverly said that “Iran’s leadership must notice that people are not happy with the direction they have taken.”

“They can leave the aspirations of their nuclear weapons. They can stop voting in their own country. They can stop their destabilization activities,” he told AFP at the United Nations.

“Different paths are possible. That is the path we want Iran to take and that’s the path that will see them with a stronger economy, a happier community and a more active part in the international community.”

French President Emmanuel Macron said he asked Raisi at a Tuesday meeting to show “respect for women’s rights.”

‘Significant shock’

Protests are the most serious in Iran since November 2019 riots over the increase in fuel prices.

The wave of riots over the death of Amini “is a very significant surprise, it is a social crisis,” said Iranian expert David Rigoulet-Roze from the French Institute for international and strategic affairs.

The demonstration first erupted Friday in the province of Aminini in Kurdistan, where Governor Ismail Zarei Koosha said Tuesday three people were killed in “a plot by the enemy.”

Kurdistan Police Commander Ali Azadi on Wednesday announced the deaths of others, according to the Tasnim News Agency.

Two more protesters were “killed during the riots” in Kermanshah Province, prosecutors in the region Shahram Karami were quoted as saying by the Fars news agency, blaming “counter-revolutionary agents.”

In addition, the Kurdish rights group based in Norway, Hengaw, said two protesters, aged 16 and 23 years, had been killed last night in the province of Azerbaijan Barat.

An additional 450 people have been injured and 500 were arrested, said the group – numbers that could not be verified independently.