Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Oct 27: A day after a gunman shot and killed at least 15 people at a Muslim shrine, Iran’s president said on Thursday that ‘riots’ prompted by Mahsa Amini’s passing created the conditions for ‘terrorist’ assaults.
Thousands of mourners paid tribute to Amini on Wednesday in her village, 40 days after she passed away in police custody, as the brutal attack in the southern city of Shiraz took place.
In a statement on Thursday, the ultra-conservative President Ebrahim Raisi seemed to draw a connection between the two catastrophes, saying that “the enemy’s objective is to impede the country’s growth, and then these riots pave the stage for terrorist acts.”
In response to the mass murder that took place at the Shiite Muslim Shah Cheragh tomb during evening prayers and which the Sunni extremist group Islamic State claimed responsibility for, Raisi promised “a terrible response.”
Iran has been rocked by protests ever since Amini, a 22-year-old woman of Kurdish descent, passed away on September 16—three days after the notorious morality police in Tehran detained her for allegedly violating the Islamic dress code for women.
The rallies have been led by young women who have burned their headscarves and confronted security forces, in the biggest wave of unrest to rock Iran for years.
Nearly six weeks after Amini’s death, the demonstrations show no signs of ending, fuelled by public outrage over a crackdown that has claimed the lives of other young women and girls.
Despite heightened security measures, columns of mourners had poured into Amini’s hometown of Saqez in Kurdistan province on Wednesday, paying tribute at her grave at the end of the traditional mourning period.
