Social media users have reported the arrest of dozens of protesters including several Iranian rights activists at an anti-Taliban protest rally Wednesday afternoon outside the Pakistan Embassy in Tehran.
According to the Twitter account of the reformist news website Zeitoon, most of those detained were Afghans but prominent Iranian women’s rights activist Narges Mohammadi who was freed from prison after more than eight years in October 2020, and three other Iranian activists were also detained and taken to an unknown location by the police. Zeitoon described the arrests as “violent” in its tweet
On Tuesday and Wednesday morning tens of Afghans had protested and chanted against the Taliban and Pakistan outside the Pakistani embassy in Tehran and its consulate in Mashhad for the alleged military support of Pakistan for the Taliban in Panjshir where resistance against them continues. There was a heavy police presence but no arrests were made.
Vidoes of the protest rally Wednesday in which scores of Afghan women and Iranian activists chanted slogans against the Taliban(link is external) and in support of the anti-Taliban resistance in Panjshir show the police dispersing the protesters(link is external). Some social media users have said that the police took away protesters’ mobile(link is external) phones and only returned them if footage and photos of the protest were deleted.
In one of the photos posted on Twitter Mohammadi is seen holding up(link is external) a placard reading “From Kabul to Tehran, Mothers, Women, Unite, Unite”. Farhad Fathi, journalist, in a tweet said protesters also chanted(link is external) “From Kabul to Tehran, Down with Taliban” and “Down with Pakistan”. Hossein Yazdi, another journalist said protesters had also chanted “Supporting Taliban, Betrayal of Iran”.
Prior to the Taliban attacks on Panjshir, Iranian officials spoke very cautiously about developments in Afghanistan and said Iran would continue to monitor the situation.
Iran’s state media also called the Taliban takeover of Kabul a victory against the United States and avoided any negative comments on the Taliban, but on Monday after reports of Pakistan’s aerial attacks on the positions of Panjshir resistance fighters, the Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh condemned the attacks “in the strongest terms” without naming Pakistan but said “foreign involvement” in the attack would be investigated.
Source » iranbriefing