Shiite cleric Sayad Shahraki has been shot dead by a group of armed men in the eastern Iranian city of Zahedan, one of the epicenters of the protests against the Iranian authorities that erupted almost two months ago over the death in custody of young Mahsa Amini, who was initially arrested for wearing the veil incorrectly.
The death of the cleric and imam of the Mulay Motaqian mosque was confirmed by the police chief of the province of Sistan and Baluchistan, of which Zahedan is the capital, Sardar Ahmad Taheri, who explained that the cleric was assaulted by a group of men in a vehicle.
Shahraki, one of the main representatives of the Shiite community in a mainly Sunni and Baloch city, was shot in the head and chest. His assailants fled and the medical services could do nothing to save his life, according to the chief of police in statements reported by the Iranian reformist news portal Entejab.
Zahedan was the scene of a violent crackdown on September 30 in which security forces killed 92 people, including 12 children, according to civil organizations. Protests in the city began first over the June rape of a Baloch girl by a police officer and later spilled over into the death of Amini on September 16.
Four members of the security forces were also killed on September 30, known as Zahedan’s Black Friday, which led to the immediate dismissal of its security officials for excessive force against protesters.
On the other hand, new disturbances in the country have claimed the lives of two people, identified by the official news agency IRNA as «mobilizers» of rallies in favor of the security forces.
The first of them died in an attack carried out by «armed rioters» in the town of Alborz, west of Tehran.
According to IRNA, these «rioters» opened fire in this town on a group of Iranian security forces, of whom a dozen were wounded. The second «mobilizer» was killed in an assault also carried out by these «rioters» in the city of Lahijan in the province of Gilan, in the north of the country.
