IRAN: Funeral for street vendor turns into anti-regime protest

NCRI - A number of residents of the Iranian city of Khoramshahr were arrested after taking part in a funeral service of an Arab Iranian worker that turned into an anti-regime protest with people chanting slogans against the regime.

Younes Asakereh, a 31-year-old street vendor, was a resident of the city of Khoramshahr in the oil-rich province of Khuzestan in southwestern Iran.

Younes, father to two young children, set himself on fire on March 13, to protest against the repeated attacks by security forces that prevented him from working.

He died of severe burns in hospital in Tehran on Sunday, March 22.

Younes’s self-immolation provoked rage in the people in cities across Iran, particularly in the Khuzestan Province.

Participants at the funeral chanted “We are all Younes”, “Freedom, freedom”.

According to reports, at least eight participants of the funeral were arrested afterwards - either in their homes or while returning home from the funeral.

Last week, during a soccer match on Tuesday, the security forces in Ahvaz arrested spectators who carried signs that read: “We are all Younes.”

Plainclothes agents and intelligence agents barbarically attacked the spectators and arrested a large number of people, especially those wearing traditional Arab minority clothing known as Dishdasha.

The Iranian Resistance called on all international bodies to condemn the savage repression of the people of Ahvaz who manifested on March 17 in defense of Younes and to take urgent measures to free those who were arrested.