Iran’s Khamenei Blames US, Israel for Encouraging Protests Over Woman’s Death
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blamed the United States and Israel for encouraging the protests throughout the Islamic Republic over the death of a Kurdish Iranian woman who was detained by the country’s morality police for not wearing her hijab properly. They are his first comments on the protests since the death of Mahsa Amini in Tehran more than two weeks ago. “I say clearly that these riots and the insecurity were engineered by America and the occupying, false Zionist regime, as well as their paid agents, with the help of some traitorous Iranians abroad,” he said. Khamenei said in his remarks that Amini’s death was “an accident” and that it “pained us,” and that her death was being used as an “excuse” to destabilize Iran. At least 92 people have been killed in Iran’s crackdown on the protests, the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) non-governmental agency reported on Sunday. Another 41 people were killed in the city of Zahedan in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan, according to IHR, during protests on Friday over accusations that a police chief in the province’s port city of Chabahar had raped a 15-year-old girl from the Sunni Baluch minority.