Five months after the start of the contestation movement caused by the death of Mahsa Amini, the power gave the brilliance to these celebrations, organized in 1,400 cities in the country.
MO12345lemonde with AFP
Tens of thousands of Iranians converged on Saturday February 11, in the morning, towards the center of Tehran and the big cities to mark the 44th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, almost five months after the start of the movement of protest provoked by the death of Mahsa Amini. President Ebrahim Raïssi was to speak at the end of the morning in front of the people gathered in the Place Azadi (“Liberty”) in the capital on this holiday.
In 2021 and 2022, the birthday ceremonies of the 1979 Revolution had been limited due to the Pandemic of Covid-19. But this year, power has given birth to these celebrations, organized in 1,400 cities in the country, according to television.
On Place Azadi, people gathered brandished portraits of the supreme guide, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, as well as the popular general Qassem Soleimani, killed by a raid The American army in January 2020 in Baghdad, according to a journalist from the France-Presse agency.
of Sejjil missiles and Shahed 136 drones
They took up the slogans “at low the United States”, “A low Israel”, “Down the United Kingdom”, the main adversaries of the Islamic Republic since 1979, and called to support “an united Iran, strong and stable “. Around the immense place were deployed sejjil missiles and Shahed 136 drones produced by Iran.
These celebrations intervene while the country is shaken by a protest movement since the death on September 16 of Mahsa Amini, a 22 -year -old Iranian Kurdish deceased after being arrested by the police of the mores, who accused him of Having violated the strict dress code of the Islamic Republic.
According to the authorities, hundreds of people, including members of the security forces, have been killed in the context of the demonstrations, whose scale has decreased in recent weeks.
Thousands of people, including cultural personalities, lawyers and journalists, were arrested. On the occasion of the anniversary of the Revolution, the power announced the release of a “significant number” of detainees, including that of the Franco-Iranian researcher Fariba Adelkhah, arrested in Iran in June 2019 and sentenced to five years prison for national security involvement.