As women burn headscarves and cut their hair in protests across the country, an Iranian official revealed on Tuesday that school students participating in street demonstrations are being detained and taken to mental health institutions.
In an interview with an independent Iranian reformist newspaper, the Minister of Education of Will Yousef Nouri, confirmed that some students were indeed detained and referred to what he called “psychological institutions”.
Establishments that keep young people, he said, aim to correct and re-educate students to avoid “anti-social” behavior.
“It is possible that these students have become ‘anti-social characters’ and we want to correct them,” he told the Shargh newspaper, adding that the students “can go back to school after they have been corrected.”
Almost a month ago, Mahsa Amini , 22, died after being taken to a “re-education center” by state “moral police” for failing to comply with Iran’s conservative dress code. Amini’s death sparked weeks of anti-government protests that spread across the country.
The Minister of Education was unable to specify the number of students detained, pointing out that “the number is not large and that there are not many”.
Girls and women across Iran played a vital role in the demonstrations and, in recent weeks, have staged rallies in schools, university campuses and on the streets.
Images circulating on social media show Iran’s female population chanting “death to the dictator” as they take off their scarves. On one occasion, the CNN witnessed girls from a vocational school in Tehran protesting in a street near the institution and shouting: “woman, life, freedom”.
The demonstrations at times became dangerous. Police fired tear gas at people in Tehran on Wednesday, and bookstores and offices near Tehran University closed their doors as riot police chased and fired rubber bullets, an eyewitness recounted.
In Kaj Square, members of the Iranian paramilitary organization Basij ordered people to move and prevented others from staying on the streets, according to the source.
Videos obtained by the pro-reform activist channel IranWire showed demonstrations in Tehran and other Iranian cities.
Police and Basij members fired tear gas at a meeting of Iranian lawyers in Tehran, while uniformed and plainclothes police were seen throwing weapons into the air in western Tehran, scattering people there.
On one of the busiest shopping streets in the city, riot police were seen assembling. In another, protesters chanted “Mullahs, disappear.”
Footage from Rasht, northwest of Tehran, showed police wearing riot gear, beating people with batons and pulling them off the sidewalk.
On Tuesday (11), the United Nations children’s agency, UNICEF, called for the protection of children and adolescents amid public unrest in Iran.
“We are extremely concerned by the continued reports of children and adolescents being killed, injured and detained amid the ongoing public unrest in Iran,” the UNICEF statement reads.
Source: CNN Brasil
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