Fresh violence erupted in a Kurdish city in western Iran and reports emerged of oil workers joining nationwide protests that have spread since the death of a 22-year-old woman last month in the custody of the nation’s so-called morality police.
International pressure on Iran’s leadership also mounted on Monday, with the U.K. imposing sanctions on its security forces. The new sanctions target senior security officials and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in response to a heavy crackdown on the protests, which swept the country after Mahsa Amini died in custody on Sept. 16.
Unverified videos posted on Twitter purportedly show scores of laborers and uniformed workers marching through a plant in Assaluyeh, in the oil-rich province of Bushehr on the Persian Gulf. They could be heard whistling and chanting, “Don’t be afraid! We’re all together,” and “Death to the dictator!”
Assaluyeh is an industrial hub that is also home to facilities that process gas from the giant South Pars field. None of the videos could be verified by Bloomberg News and there were no signs that petrochemical production was affected. The strikes haven’t been confirmed by the oil ministry, but suggest the protests may be broadening to include a critical sector of Iran’s economy.
Amini was arrested for allegedly flouting Iran’s strict Islamic dress code and her death sparked some of the biggest protests in the country since the 1979 revolution. The U.K. sanctions target the entire division responsible for her arrest, as well as the head of the IRGC’s plainclothes militia, known as the Basij, according to a statement from the U.K.’s foreign ministry.
The sanctions were announced after the U.S. imposed fresh penalties on Iran in response to the Islamic Republic’s treatment of protesters. The European Union, the main interlocutor in indirect talks between Washington and Tehran to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, said it will discuss sanctions on Oct. 17.
“These sanctions send a clear message to the Iranian authorities — we will hold you to account for your repression of women and girls and for the shocking violence you have inflicted on your own people,” U.K. Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a statement.
While the nuclear talks stall, protesters in Iran have continued to gather in different cities despite a violent crackdown by the security forces. Labor groups have begun joining the demonstrations by staging strikes.
“The world is watching what is happening in Iran,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in tweets Monday. “These protestors are Iranian citizens, led by women and girls, demanding dignity and basic rights. We stand with them, and we will hold responsible those using violence in a vain effort to silence their voices.”
Elsewhere, there were signs that security forces escalated efforts to crush dissent in the country’s western Kurdish region. Several unverified videos shared overnight on social media purportedly showed gunfire and explosions in the city of Sanandaj, the capital of Kurdistan province.
On Sunday, the Europe-based Hengaw Organization for Human Rights said at least four people were killed by security forces in Kurdish cities over the weekend.
Iran’s western Kurdish region has become one of the major flashpoints in the unrest because Amini was from Saghez, about 118 miles north of Sanandaj. Iran’s Kurdish community has for decades complained of being marginalized.
Iran’s government hasn’t provided a death toll for the unrest since Sept. 24, when it said 41 people had died. On Saturday, the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights said at least 185 people have been killed by security forces, including 19 children.
