The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) clashed with local residents of Kurdish areas of western Iran on Tuesday, according to opposition-affiliated organizations.
In Dehlor, a village in the Kermanshah Province, Iranian forces attacked local residents, with armed clashes breaking out at the scene, according to Hengaw. The attack came in light of the killing of a Basij paramilitary force member in Kermanshah on Sunday, according to the report.
Hengaw was informed that at dawn on Tuesday, June 13, 2023, the #IRGC suicide drones hit a number of locations on the heights of #Kosalan near Hamro Sfayan village in Saravabad county, which is situated between the villages of Razaw and Selin.#Kurdistanhttps://t.co/rXCXVfVTp4
— Hengaw Organization for Human Rights (@Hengaw_English) June 13, 2023
Clashes were also reported in Kosalan between Iranian forces and the Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), with Hengaw reporting that suicide drones and shelling targeted the Kosalan Mountain near Sawllawa in western Iran. A member of the IRGC was killed in the clashes, according to the report. The Kurdistan Human Rights Network reported on the clashes as well.
Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK) fighters in Iran in 2012 (credit: Voice of America/Wikimedia Commons)Regime violence against slain protesters’ families intensifies
Additionally, on Tuesday, residents of Saqqez conducted a general strike in protest against the reported arrests of the relatives of protesters who were killed during the protests that swept Iran following the killing of Mahsa Amini in September.
اعتصاب گسترده بازاریان و کسبه شهر #سقز به نشانه اعتراض به بازداشت خانوادههای دادخواه و همچنین تغیر هدفمند قبرستان آیچی و از دید خارج کردن آرامگاه مهساامینیسهشنبه ۲۳ خرداد ۱۴۰۲#مهسا_امينی pic.twitter.com/FZmbwnIeDm
— farhad mahmoudi (@farhadmahmoudi8) June 13, 2023
The relatives of the killed protesters had visited Amini’s tomb last week to protest reported efforts by Iranian authorities to block public access to the tomb before they were arrested after returning to their homes.
Last month, Amini’s family reported that her tomb had been vandalized, with a glass pane on the gravestone shattered by the vandals.
Amini was arrested by “morality police” officers in Tehran in mid-September last year for allegedly incorrectly wearing her hijab, with her family saying that she was beaten by the officers in the van that brought her to the police station.
At the police station, she collapsed and was brought to the hospital where she later died. Her relatives have told foreign media that they were kept largely in the dark about the situation.
Amini’s death sparked large-scale protests across Iran which continued in dozens of cities for over four months, before slowing earlier this year.
Opposition-affiliated media, including Radio Farda, have reported an intensification of attacks and pressure by Iranian authorities on the families of killed protesters in recent weeks.
Additionally, on Sunday, Pouya Molaeirad, a relative of Kian Pirfalak – a 9-year-old boy who died during the protests last year, was shot and killed by Iranian authorities following a confrontation at Pirfalak’s burial site in the village of Parchestan-e Gurui in the Khuzestan Province, according to Radio Farda.
Pirfalak was one of several residents of Izeh killed when Iranian government forces shot toward protesters in the city in November. While Iranian officials claimed that “terrorists” conducted the shooting, local residents, including Pirfalak’s mother, said that government forces were behind the massacre.
“The criminal regime has murdered another of our youth,” tweeted Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, the son of the deposed shah of Iran. “The name of Pouya Molairad, this young Bakhtiari patriot, has become eternal. This child-killing regime, however, is not eternal. This pure evil inflicted on the will of the Iranian nation will be removed and the perpetrators of the murder of Iranian children and youth will face trial. This is a national and unbreakable promise. I pray for patience for the Molai-rad and Pirfalak family.”
The Critical Threats Project (CTP) at the American Enterprise Institute noted in an update on Monday that “Iranian security forces are attempting to discourage citizens from holding commemoration ceremonies for killed Mahsa Amini protesters.”
The CTP noted that the renewed violence against civilians could revive anti-government protests in Iran.
One young woman in the city of Semnan in northern Iran told the BBC earlier this week that “too many young lives have been lost in the past few months for us to go back to how things were before.”
A woman from Tehran told the BBC as well: “I want to show that the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement is still alive and that we have not forgotten the death of Mahsa Amini.”
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