April 7 – Demonstrators chanting anti-regime slogans in Iran took to the streets this week, as a new wave of protests erupted.
The demonstrations were sparked by the death of 19-year-old Hamidreza Roohi, who was killed by security forces in November, during a protest in Tehran.
Protests in recent weeks had largely stopped, following several state-sanctioned executions of anti-government protesters.
Reports that more schools had been targeted by poisonous chemicals were published on social media this week, including for the first time boys schools, according to tweets by the secret activist group 1500tasvir.
The support network’s Twitter feed published messages it had received from sources which claimed that three schools for girls in the country and two schools for boys in West Azerbaijan province in Iran had been targeted.
The group added that phones were confiscated at one school by plain clothes policemen and children were not allowed to call their parents.
And a security agreement signed by Iran and Iraq paved the way for a renewed crackdown on Iranian-Kurdish opposition groups operating inside Iraq’s Kurdistan region.
Kurds have increasingly sought independence from Iran and Iraq’s government through the Kurdish separatist movement, which calls for the creation of an internationally recognized state of Kurdistan.
Iran’s government has accused Iranian-Kurdish armed groups of working with Israel to launch missile attacks against Iran from inside Iraq to support protests following the death of 22-year old Kurdish-Iranian Jina Mahsa Amini, who died in September while in police custody.
