Iran’s government has ordered an investigation into clashes between protesters and riot police at a hospital in the country’s west on Sunday as a video emerged online showing another hospital being hit with tear gas by security forces on Tuesday.
Video posted to social media on Tuesday purportedly showed the courtyard of Sina Hospital submerged in tear gas smoke. The footage cannot be verified by Bloomberg, but the hospital is near the capital’s Grand Bazaar, where a fresh bout of protests and clashes with police erupted on Tuesday, the Associated Press reported.
Security forces fired tear gas at demonstrators in the sprawling market on December 28, where traders had shuttered their businesses and were staging a sit-in, AP said, citing witnesses. Unverified social media footage also appeared to show police rushing crowds in the bazaar’s surrounding streets and in one of its main arteries.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said on Monday that at least 29 people had been killed in provinces including Lorestan, Fars and Kurdistan and more than 1200 people had been arrested since a sharp currency decline triggered demonstrations in Tehran that later spread to other cities.
On Sunday, videos emerged on social media appearing to show security forces storming the Imam Khomeini Hospital in the western city of Ilam and firing tear gas inside. The footage fuelled even more public anger at the authorities, prompting President Masoud Pezeshkian to order the investigation. Officials haven’t yet responded to the incident at the hospital in Tehran.
The protests have divided Iran’s leadership over how to respond. While Pezeshkian, a political moderate and a former heart surgeon, has described protesters’ demands as legitimate, judiciary chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei has warned that “no leniency or tolerance” would be shown towards protesters and vowed swift trials, according to the official Mizan news agency.
A currency crisis has triggered the latest wave of protests in Iran.Credit: AP
“Rioters can no longer claim to have been misled,” Ejei said, accusing the US and Israel of openly backing the unrest.
“There is now no room for any concessions towards rioters and instigators of unrest.”
