Ebrahim Raisi accuses the USA of ‘destabilisation’ amid protests

This image grab from a UGC video made available on Wednesday shows female protesters being roughly handled by Iranian security forces in the city of Rasht in Iran. Pic/AFP

Iran's president accused the US on Thursday of conducting a "failed policy of destabilisation" targeting his nation after Iranians in cities nationwide protested the death of a 22-year-old woman in the custody of the country's morality police.

President Ebrahim Raisi's repeated comments have tried to blame the demonstrations sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini as a Western plot, even as school-age protesters remove their mandatory headscarves, or hijabs. They come after protests in cities across Iran on Wednesday, with videos circulating of security forces apparently firing toward demonstrators and using violence to put down the dissent.

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Raisi, a hard-line protege of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, described them as a plot against Iran by its enemies abroad. Raisi's remarks came on Thursday as he spoke to a conference in Astana, Kazakhstan. "The Iranian nation has invalidated the American military option and, as they themselves have admitted, brought the policy of sanctions and maximum pressure a humiliating failure," Raisi said. "Now, following America's failure in militarisation and sanctions, Washington and its allies have resorted to the failed policy of destabilisation."

Raisi did not otherwise directly address the demonstrations across at least 19 cities on Wednesday. Gathering information about the demonstrations remains difficult amid the internet restrictions and the arrests of at least 40 journalists in the country, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. An Oslo-based group, Iran Human Rights, estimated Wednesday that at least 201 people have been killed. This includes an estimated 90 people killed by security forces in the city of Zahedan amid demonstrations against a police officer accused of rape in a separate case.

201
No of people killed in the unrest

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