DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Fresh anti-government protests began in Iran, witnesses said Sunday, as university students in Tehran and another city demonstrated around memorials to thousands of people killed in a crackdown on previous nationwide demonstrations about six weeks ago.
Iran’s state news agency said students protested at five universities in the capital Tehran and one in the city of Mashhad on Sunday. Scattered protests broke out on campuses on Saturday after 40 days of memorials for people killed in January during anti-government rallies.
The Iranian government has not commented on the latest protests.
Many Iranians held ceremonies last week to mark the traditional 40-day period of mourning. According to activists monitoring the situation, most of the protesters were killed around January 8 and 9.
Iranians across the country are still reeling from shock, grief and fear after earlier protests were crushed by the deadliest crackdown ever seen under the rule of 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Thousands of people were killed and tens of thousands were arrested.
While the crackdown quelled the largest protests, smaller protests are still ongoing, according to protesters and videos shared on social media.
During the 1979 Islamic Revolution that overthrew the Shah and brought the Islamic Republic to power, 40-day memorials to slain protesters often turned into rallies that security forces tried to crush and caused new casualties. These were marked 40 days later by new protests.
Social media posts on Saturday and Sunday claimed that security forces were trying to prevent people from attending some 40-day ceremonies.
The new protests come as Iran braces for the possibility of a US attack as the Trump administration pushes for concessions from Iran on its nuclear program and other issues. The US has built the largest military presence in the Middle East in decades.
The US Human Rights Activists News Agency reports that at least 7,015 people, including 214 government forces, have been killed in previous protests and crackdowns. The group has been accurate in counting deaths during previous rounds of unrest in Iran and relies on a network of activists there to verify deaths.
The death toll continues to rise as the group vets information despite disrupted communications with people in the Islamic Republic.
The Iranian government offered its only death toll from previous protests on January 21, saying 3,117 people had been killed. Iran’s theocracy has a history of underreporting or underreporting deaths from past unrest.
The Associated Press was unable to independently assess the death toll because authorities cut off Internet access and international calls in Iran.
US President Donald Trump warned on Friday that Iran, even as Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran expected to have a proposed deal ready in the next few days after indirect nuclear talks with the United States.
The movements of additional U.S. warships and aircraft, including the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, near the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea do not guarantee a U.S. attack on Iran, but they strengthen Trump’s ability to carry out such an attack if he so chooses.
