TEHRAN-Iran has charged about 1,000 people in the Tehran province for their alleged involvement in nationwide protests sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody, state news agency IRNA reported Tuesday.
The trials of those accused will be heard in public over the coming days, IRNA said, citing Ali Al-Qasi Mehr, chief justice of Tehran province. Iranian media said over the weekend that the trials for several demonstrators had started last week.
People who “have serious accusations, including assaulting or martyring security guards, and setting fire to public property have been scheduled in Revolutionary Court,” Mehr said, according to IRNA.
The number of people indicted in Tehran province stood at 315 on Saturday, according to a separate tally by state-aligned news agency ISNA, which also reported that more than 700 others have been charged in other provinces across Iran.
This comes as Iranian authorities step up efforts to put an end to an uprising that has been ongoing in the country for more than six weeks.
The nationwide demonstrations were first ignited by the death of Mahsa (also known as Zhina) Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman who died in mid-September after being detained by the country’s morality police. Since then, protesters across Iran have coalesced around a range of grievances with the regime.