In Sistan and Baluchestan, the last glowing embers of Iran's protest movement .

Cities in western Iran went on strike Wednesday in solidarity with mourners marking 40 days since security forces killed dozens in a crackdown on protests in the country’s strife-torn southeast, rights groups said.

Security forces opened fire on protests that erupted on September 30 after weekly prayers in Zahedan, the capital of the restive province of Sistan-Baluchistan on Iran’s border with Pakistan.

It came two weeks after demonstrations broke out across Iran over the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian of Kurdish origin, following her arrest in Tehran for allegedly flouting the country’s strict hijab dress rules for women.

The crackdown on national protests considering that her dying has killed at least 304 people, along with 41 kids and 24 ladies, says the Oslo-primarily based institution Iran Human Rights (IHR).

Activists were seen distributing fliers calling for protests in all towns Wednesday for the forty-day mourning rite of Zahedan’s “Bloody Friday,” in a video shared through the 1500tasvir social media channel.

one among Iran’s most outstanding actors, Taraneh Alidoosti, additionally posted a photo of herself on Instagram without a headband and holding a slogan that has come to be the rallying cry of the protests: “lady. lifestyles. Freedom.”

On Tuesday, Iran’s water polo group, which turned into competing at an Asian Championship suit in opposition to India in Bangkok, failed to sing the Iranian country wide anthem, in line with video cited in a Reuters record, a pass the anti-authorities protest motion has come to peer as the trendy show of harmony.

‘Angry and frustrated’

vast strikes had been held “in unity” with Zahedan within the Kurdish towns of Baneh, Bukan, Kermanshah, Marivan, Sanandaj and Amini’s place of origin of Saqez, within the u . s . a .’s west, said the Norway-primarily based Hengaw rights organization.

‘indignant and pissed off’

The trigger for the violence that IHR stated left at least 92 dead in Zahedan on September 30 was the alleged rape in custody of a fifteen-year-antique female via a police commander in the province’s port town of Chabahar.

however analysts say the Baluchi had been inspired through the protests that flared over Amini’s death, which had been initially driven by means of girls’s rights but expanded over time to include other grievances.

“The 2022 protests are a convergence of angry and pissed off Iranians with the equal aim, overthrowing the Islamic republic and a theocratic regime,” said Saeid Golkar, from the college of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

Poverty-troubled Sistan-Baluchistan province is a flashpoint for clashes with drug smuggling gangs, in addition to rebels from the Baluchi minority and Sunni extremist agencies.

Activists have long complained the region has been the sufferer of discrimination via Iran’s Shiite clerical leadership, with disproportionate numbers of Baluchi killed in clashes every year and additionally hanged in executions.

Protests over Amini’s death have proven no signs and symptoms of abating no matter the brutal crackdown and a campaign of mass arrests.

young ladies have led the manner, doing away with and burning their head coverings, chanting anti-regime slogans and confronting security forces on the street.

On Wednesday, reformist events referred to as for “courageous and revolutionary modifications” along with a referendum in a bid to cease the disaster, consistent with a declaration from the Iranian Reform front, founded closing year with the aid of officials close to former president Mohammad Khatami.

however Henry Rome, an Iran expert at the Washington Institute, counseled the “call will nearly truly wither.”

“The regime is unable to coalesce around even modest reforms to defuse the protests; in a second of turbulence, there’s little prospect it would cross thus far as to position itself on the poll,” he said.

‘Systematically silencing women’

Iran has struggled to suppress the demonstrations, which have advanced into its largest venture since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

safety forces have fired immediately on protesters the use of stay ammunition, birdshot, tear gas, and even paintballs.

Iran has sought to portray the protest motion as a plot hatched by way of its arch-enemies inside the West, with Britain, Canada, the eu Union, and the united states implementing sanctions over rights violations.

the eu will are seeking to undertake similarly regulations next week, German overseas Minister Annalena Baerbock stated Wednesday.

“We won’t permit up,” Baerbock said. “We stand with the women and men of Iran, now not most effective nowadays, but as long as it is important.”

The Islamic progressive shield Corps become accused this week of issuing death threats in opposition to  reporters operating for the London-based totally Persian-language Iran international tv channel.

The Saudi-connected channel’s proprietor, Volant Media, said London police had warned them of “credible threats to their lives”.

In reaction, Iran’s Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib warned Britain it'd “pay” for what it categorized moves to destabilize the Islamic republic.

Khatib also accused Iran’s local rival Saudi Arabia of financing media outlets at the back of the wave of unrest, state information agency IRNA pronounced Wednesday.

An remarkable number of lady reporters had been detained, which journalists without borderlines (RSF) said “symbolically exhibits the Iranian regime’s intention to systematically silence ladies’s voices”