Iran Focus: Tehran, Mar. 30 Widespread clashes erupted between people and State Security Forces in the north-western Iranian town of Baneh (Kurdistan province) yesterday following two separate shootings by government agents which left at two people dead. Scores of people were injured or arrested, according to eye-witnesses who reported also that two security vehicles were set alight and government buildings ransacked during the outbreak. Iran Focus
Tehran, Mar. 30 Widespread clashes erupted between people and State Security Forces in the north-western Iranian town of Baneh (Kurdistan province) yesterday following two separate shootings by government agents which left at two people dead.
Scores of people were injured or arrested, according to eye-witnesses who reported also that two security vehicles were set alight and government buildings ransacked during the outbreak.
On Monday a government agent shot and fatally injured a man only identifies by his first name Jamal near the village of Noh Nour (Nine Lights) close to Baneh. Residents on hearing the news angrily apprehended the agent and gathered outside the local court calling for his prosecution.
In a separate incident yesterday, another man by the name of Khaled Koukhi from a nearby village of Koukheh-Mamou was killed after being shot at by an SSF agent. Koukhi was pronounced dead after local residents took him to a nearby hospital.
The spate of shootings was largely viewed as part of a recent government clampdown on dissent, following the recent Persian New Year protests against the ruling theocracy.
Witnesses reported that the latest protests erupted from the local hospital doorstep soon after news spread of the killings. Demonstrators threw stones at state-owned banks, shattering their windows. During the ensuing chaos, two dispatches of SSF agents were called in to contain the protests which soon spread to several locations.
Portraits of the Iranian regimes President Mohammad Khatami, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as the regimes founder Ayatollah Khomeini, were brought down from the walls of government and offices and were torn by angry protestors, according to witnesses.
A number of people were arrested by security forces. No information has been given on their fate.
