Iran fails to suppress 40th day protests as government buildings are attacked

Published

2 years ago

October 28, 2022

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Forty days of protest in Iran passed on Wednesday, with demonstrators making it clear their demands for change are as strong as ever.

Tensions continued into Thursday, with anger over the death of at least one protester leading to attacks on official buildings.

In Mahabad, the death of 35-year-old Ismaeil Mauludi prompted chaotic scenes as protesters attempted to break into government offices. Norway-based human rights group Hengaw say he was killed by security forces during Wednesday’s demonstrations.

Protesters can be seen breaching the perimeter fence before dispersing in a hail of gunfire in this footage shared by Hengaw.

While municipal offices have been targeted before during these protests, it’s rare to see demonstrations escalating in this way on video.

It follows mass demonstrations across the country on Wednesday.

The Kurdish city of Saqqez saw people taking to the streets early in the day.

It was the hometown and now resting place of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old woman whose death sparked the unrest that has swept across the country.

Huge crowds travelled to Mahsa’s grave to mark 40 days since her death, a significant milestone for Iranians as it marks the end of the traditional mourning period.

The Iranian forces attempted to dissuade people from gathering at her grave, but state affiliated news reports denied that a large security presence had been assembled in the area.

However, videos posted to social media suggest otherwise.

The first part of the clip shows at least seven police officers dressed in protective gear and carrying anti-riot shields.

It appears to have been filmed on the western end of Madar Blvd, which is located adjacent to one of the main roads leading to the cemetery in Aichi where many protesters were headed.

A larger group wearing the same uniforms appear to be gathered on the junction itself, but the video cuts off before we get a clear view.

Other pictures shared online shows security forces gathered at Mydane Dayk Square, on the other end of Madar Boulevard, the previous evening.

Despite their efforts, thousands of Iranians came.

Iranian-backed media reports said 8,000 people marched to the cemetery. Figures provided by anti-government sources were much higher, saying some 35,000 men and women from nearby towns and cities attended.

It is difficult to report on the ground in Iran, but one online tool can provide an indication of how many people were travelling on the 2.85 mile main road from Saqqez to the cemetery.

One video filmed from a bridge almost halfway between the entrance to Saqqez city and the cemetery provides a 360 degree view of the crowd.

We’ve created a panorama by stitching together stills from the video to give us an image. This helps establish a snapshot view of the crowd either side of the bridge as they walk back towards the city. It shows around 825 metres of the road.

Using this image, we can identify some key markers, such as a row of pylons along a trough in the ground and where the road curves around a grassy verge.

We then plotted these key markers onto the map supplied by mapchecker.com, a tool that provides an estimate of crowd sizes.

People in this snapshot are close together but are not standing shoulder to shoulder. There are also gaps and some cars. Using a guide provided by the site, we estimate that the crowd is standing 1.7 people per square metre.

Mapchecker.com estimates that the crowd visible in the snapshot is 14,535 people strong.

As we are unable to see beyond what is captured in the video, it is likely the true number of protesters is much higher.

The protest at the funeral appears to have remained calm, but tensions rose as the march returned to the city.

A video recorded on Wednesday afternoon shows the scene at Mydane Dayk Square.

Smoke billows from a police shelter that seems to have been set on fire by demonstrators.

Another fire can be seen burning in the square itself, while protesters watch on.

It’s not clear exactly what is happening in this video as it’s difficult to make out who the different groups are. However, the sound of weapons being fired can be heard at least once which indicates that security forces are present.

Another clip posted online shows the chaotic scene on the ground in Mydane Dayk Square.

Protests on day 40 took place across the country, including the capital Tehran, Sanandaj, Gorgan, and Isfahan.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

World

At least 10 dead after fire rips through retirement home in Spain

Published

4 hours ago

November 15, 2024

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At least 10 dead after fire rips through retirement home in Spain

At least 10 people have been killed after a fire broke out at a retirement home in northern Spain in the early hours of this morning, officials have said.

A further two people were seriously injured in the blaze at the residence in the town of Villafranca de Ebro in Zaragoza, according to the Spanish news website Diario Sur.

They remain in a critical condition, while several others received treatment for smoke inhalation.

Firefighters were alerted to the blaze at the residence – the Jardines de Villafranca – at 5am (4am UK time) on Friday.

Those who were killed in the fire died from smoke inhalation, Spanish newspaper Heraldo reported.

The residence is home to 82 elderly residents.

The blaze started in one of the rooms, Fernando Beltran, the national government’s top official in the region, told reporters.

All of the victims were elderly residents, he added.

Fire crews, paramedics and police officers remain on site, said a spokesperson for the regional government of Aragon who confirmed the fatalities.

It took firefighters several hours to extinguish the blaze, they said.

The cause of the fire is unknown and is being investigated.

World

COP29: UN climate summits ‘no longer fit for purpose’, warn leading figures

Published

6 hours ago

November 15, 2024

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COP29: UN climate summits 'no longer fit for purpose', warn leading figures

UN climate talks are “no longer fit for purpose” and should only be hosted by countries who are trying to give up fossil fuels, veterans of the process have said.

An open letter to the United Nations, signed by former UN chief Ban Ki-moon, made a dramatic intervention in the 29th COP climate summit, under way in Baku, Azerbaijan.

Frustration over petrostate hosts – following last year’s summit in UAE – as well as the influence of fossil fuel lobbyists, prohibitive costs, and slow progress have been mounting in recent years.

The letter acknowledges the strides COPs have made on ramping up climate policies.

“But it is now clear that the COP is no longer fit for purpose,” the authors said.

“Its current structure simply cannot deliver the change at exponential speed and scale, which is essential to ensure a safe climate landing for humanity.”

The letter’s 22 signatories also include former Ireland President Mary Robinson and Christiana Figueres, former head of the UN climate body (UNFCCC) that runs the annual COP summits.

It called for the process to be streamlined and for countries to be held accountable for their promises.

Sky News analysis has found only “marginal” progress has been made since the “historic” pledge from COP28 last year to transition away from fossil fuels.

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The letter also called for “strict eligibility criteria” for host countries to exclude those “who do not support the phase out/transition away from fossil energy”.

This year’s host country, petrostate Azerbaijan, has been engulfed in controversy.

Its authoritarian president Ilham Aliyev used his opening address to criticise western hypocrisy and praise oil and gas as a “gift” from God. His criticism of France, with whom relations have long been tense, drove the French minister to cancel a trip to the summit.

While the government and its COP team run separate operations, host countries are supposed to smooth over disagreements and find consensus between the almost 200 countries gathered.

COP presidencies are also nominating themselves to be climate leaders and throwing their own countries under the spotlight.

Azerbaijan is a small developing country that relies significantly on oil and gas revenues. But it has made slow progress on building out clean power – getting just 1.5% of its energy from clean sources – and led a harsh crackdown on critics in the run up to the COP.

In an interview with Sky News on Sunday, its lead negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev was unable to say whether Azerbaijan preferred to extract all its oil and gas or seek another, cleaner economic pathway – hard though that would be.

In a news conference yesterday, Mr Rafiyev said the president had been “quite clear” and he would not comment further.

“We have opened our doors to everybody,” he added.

Some diplomats here have hinted that Azerbaijan’s presidency team mean well but might be a little out of their depth. They have never been out in front at previous COPs, but they also only had a year to prepare for their turn hosting the mighty summit.

“My sense of this is that they’re a little underprepared, a little overwhelmed and a little bit short,” said one, speaking anonymously, as is customary for diplomats trying to maintain good relations.

“But I’m not sure that that’s politics. It might just be bandwidth and preparation and things like that.”

Different regions in the world take turns to host a COP. This year it was up to Eastern Europe, but the selection process took longer than usual due to tensions over Russia’s war in Ukraine and between Azerbaijan and rival Armenia.

Achim Steiner of the UN Development Programme, called it “troubling” that some countries face questions over their host roles.

“Are there countries that are by definition good hosts and others are bad hosts?” he asked.

“In the United Nations, we maintain the principle of every nation, first of all, should have a right to be heard.

“Labels are not always the fairest way of describing a nation. Some of the largest oil producers have hosted this COP in the past, and seemingly this seemed to be a perfectly acceptable phenomenon.”

COP stands for “conference of the parties” and refers to countries (“parties”) who have signed the underlying climate treaty.

Azerbaijan’s COP29 team and the UN’s climate body have been contacted with a request to comment.

World

Body pulled from mine after police cut off supplies to ‘smoke out’ thousands of illegal miners

Published

22 hours ago

November 14, 2024

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Body pulled from mine after police cut off supplies to 'smoke out' thousands of illegal miners

A body has been recovered from a South African mine after police cut off basic supplies in an effort to force around 4,000 illegal miners to resurface.

The body has emerged from the closed gold mine in the northwest town of Stilfontein a day after South Africa’s government said it would not help the illegal miners.

Around 20 people have surfaced from the mineshaft this week as police wait nearby to arrest all those appearing from underground.

It comes a day after a cabinet minister said the government was trying to “smoke them [the miners] out”.

The move is part of the police’s “Close the Hole” operation, whereby officers cut off supplies of food, water and other basic necessities to get those who have entered illegally to come out.

Local reports suggest the supply routes were cut off at the mine around two months ago, with relatives of the miners seen in the area as the stand-off continues.

A decomposed body was brought up on Thursday, with pathologists on the scene, police spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said.

It comes after South African cabinet minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni told reporters on Wednesday that the government would not send any help to the illegal miners, known in the country as zama zamas, because they are involved in a criminal act.

“We are not sending help to criminals. We are going to smoke them out. They will come out. Criminals are not to be helped; criminals are to be prosecuted. We didn’t send them there,” Ms Ntshavheni said.

Senior police and defence officials are expected to visit the area on Friday to “reinforce the government’s commitment to bringing this operation to a safe and lawful conclusion”, according to a media advisory from the police.

In the last few weeks, over 1,000 miners have surfaced at various mines in South Africa’s North West province, where police have cut off supplies.

Many of the miners were reported to be weak, hungry and sickly after going for weeks without basic supplies.

Illegal mining remains common in South Africa’s old gold-mining areas, with miners going into closed shafts to dig for any possible remaining deposits.

The illegal miners are often from neighbouring countries, and police say the illegal operations involve larger syndicates that employ the miners.

Their presence in closed mines has also created problems with nearby communities, which complain that the illegal miners commit crimes ranging from robberies to rape.

Illegal mining groups are known to be heavily armed and disputes between rival groups sometimes result in fatal confrontations.