Demonstrations in Bern and Zurich. Hundreds express solidarity with the demonstrators in Iran.
“Give the Iranian protest a voice”: Under this motto, hundreds took to the streets in Bern and Zurich on Saturday – exactly one month after the death of the young Kurd Mehsa Amini.
Remembering Mehsa Amini: One month after the death of the 22-year-old Kurdish woman in Iran, international solidarity with the Iranian demonstrators remains strong. In Zurich and Bern, several hundred people took to the streets for the third time in a row on Saturday afternoon.
The rallies in Switzerland were called “Give the Iranian protest a voice”. A few hundred people gathered in Zurich and around 500 in Bern, according to a photographer and a correspondent for the Keystone-SDA news agency.
In Bern, many participating Kurdish flags waved. The Bern rally was organized by the Kurdistan-Iran Democratic Party in Switzerland. The organizers call for “freedom for all political prisoners in Iran” on a banner. Several speakers express their solidarity with women in Iran. The slogan “Women, life, freedom” was chanted several times.
The protests were triggered a month ago by the death of the young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in Iran. The vice police had taken the 22-year-old into police custody because she is said to have violated the prescribed dress code.
According to activists, Amini was ill-treated by police officers when she was arrested and later died in hospital. The Iranian authorities, on the other hand, state that she died of heart failure due to a previous illness.
While the protests were initially directed against the compulsory wearing of headscarves, they later questioned the Islamic system of rule in Iran. According to the Oslo-based organization Iran Human Rights, more than a hundred people have been killed in the demonstrations in Iran. According to Amnesty International, at least 23 minors are also among the fatalities.
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