Paris — Iranian students have clashed with security forces at a top Tehran university amid the wave of unrest sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, state media and rights groups said Monday. Kurdish Iranian Amini, 22, was pronounced dead on September 16, days after she was detained for allegedly breaching rules forcing women to wear hijab headscarves and modest clothes, sparking Iran's biggest wave of protests in almost three years.
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, finally broke his silence on the chaos in his country Monday, telling a group of police cadets that the U.S. and Israel were behind the "rioting" in Iran. Khamenei called Amini's death "a sad incident" that "left us heartbroken," but condemned the protests as a "planned" foreign plot to destabilize the country.
"This rioting was planned," he told cadets gathered in Tehran. "I say clearly that these riots and insecurities were designed by America and the Zionist regime, and their employees... Such actions are not normal, are unnatural."
Outside rights groups say more than 80 people have been killed since Iran's security forces started cracking down on the protests, with some members of the forces among the dead.
Concern grew over violence at Sharif University of Technology overnight where, local media reported, riot police confronted hundreds of students, using tear gas and paintballs and carrying weapons that shoot non-lethal steel pellets.
"Woman, life, liberty," students shouted, as well as "students prefer death to humiliation", the Iranian Mehr news agency reported, adding that the country's science minister later came to speak to the students in an effort to calm the situation.
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The Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights posted video apparently showing Iranian police on motorcycles pursuing running students in an underground car park and, in a separate clip, taking away detainees whose heads were covered in black cloth bags.
"Security forces have attacked Sharif University in Tehran tonight. Shooting can be heard," IHR said in a Twitter message Sunday.
In another video clip, a crowd of people can be heard chanting: "Don't be afraid! Don't be afraid! We are all together!" IHR said the video was taken at Shariati metro station in the capital Tehran on Sunday.
The New York-based group Center for Human Rights in Iran said it was "extremely concerned by videos coming out of Sharif University and Tehran today showing violent repression of protests + detainees being hauled away with their heads completely covered in fabric."
Mehr news agency said that "Sharif University of Technology announced that due to recent events and the need to protect students ... all classes will be held virtually from Monday."