Female students chant ‘get lost’ at Iranian president on campus

Guardian – Oct 8th 2022

Female students in Tehran have chanted “get lost”, according to activists, as the Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, visited their university campus on Saturday and condemned protesters enraged by the death of a young woman in custody.

As nationwide demonstrations that have rocked Iran entered a fourth week, Raisi addressed professors and students at Alzahra University in Tehran, reciting a poem that equated “rioters” to flies.

“They imagine they can achieve their evil goals in universities,” state TV reported him saying. “Unbeknownst to them, our students and professors are alert and will not allow the enemy to realise their evil goals.”

A video posted on Twitter by the activist account 1500tasvir showed what it said were female students chanting “Raisi get lost” and “Mullahs get lost” as the president visited their campus.

An Iranian state coroner’s report denied that Mahsa Amini had died as a result of blows to the head and limbs while in morality police custody and instead linked her death to pre-existing medical conditions, state media said on Friday.

The death of 22-year-old Amini, an Iranian Kurd, has ignited nationwide demonstrations, marking the biggest challenge to Iran’s clerical leaders in years.

Women have removed their veils in defiance of the clerical establishment while furious crowds called for the downfall of supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

After a call for mass demonstrations on Saturday, security forces shot at protesters and used teargas in the Kurdish cities of Sanandaj and Saqez, according to the Iranian human rights group Hengaw.

In Sanandaj, the capital of Kurdistan province in north-west Iran, one man lay dead in his car while a woman screamed “shameless”, according to Hengaw.