Protest-hit Iran leader Raisi accuses United States of 'destablisation' plot

Iran's president accused arch-enemy the United States on Thursday of seeking to destabilise the Islamic republic, which has been rocked by nearly a month of women-led protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini.

Outrage over the 22-year-old Kurdish woman's death, three days after she was arrested by Iran's notorious morality police, has fuelled the biggest wave of street protests and violence seen in the country in almost three years.

Young women and schoolgirls have been at the forefront of the protests, shouting anti-government slogans, setting their headscarves ablaze and facing off with security forces in the streets.

Chants of "Woman, Life, Freedom", the protest movement's catchcry, were again heard overnight in the northwestern city of Bukan, where demonstrators burned the Iranian flag, in a video verified by AFP.

Iran's ultra-conservative President Ebrahim Raisi again blamed the United States, its bitter foe since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

"Following the failure of America in militarisation and sanctions, Washington and its allies have resorted to the failed policy of destabilisation," he said.

The US, which is also Iran's chief adversary in a standoff over its nuclear programme, said Thursday that any return to a 2015 deal between major powers and Iran was unlikely in the near future.

"It's not that we don't want to see the (nuclear deal) reimplemented, we of course do. We're just not in a position where... that's a likely outcome anytime in the near future," White House spokesman John Kirby said.

"What we're focused on is holding the regime accountable for what they are doing to these innocent political protesters."

THOUSANDS DETAINED

Fresh protests over Amini's death were held in Iran on Thursday, with students gathered at Tehran University shouting insults at a security officer who pointed his gun at them, in online video footage verified by AFP.

Human rights groups say that Iran's bloody crackdown on the protests has already claimed at least 108 lives.

New online videos showed members of the public confronting security forces as they sought to arrest demonstrators, at times forcing officers to run away.

In other footage verified by AFP, women are seen being beaten and chased by security forces in Rasht in Gilan province.

Some oil workers have gone on strike in support of the protests, and 12 from the Bushehr petrochemical plant were arrested as a result, the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said Thursday.

Major flashpoints of the unrest have been Amini's western home province of Kurdistan and the city of Zahedan in Iran's southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan, where demonstrations erupted on September 30 over the reported rape of a teenage girl by a police commander.

HRANA said it had the names of at least 106 people slain by the security forces, and knew of another 11 dead who remained unidentified.

At least 94 more had been killed in Zahedan, one of the few Sunni-majority cities in predominantly Shiite Iran, HRANA said, adding that 20 security personnel had been killed in total, including six in Zahedan.

'DEEPENING THE DIVIDE'

Iranian judges have been issued orders against handing down soft sentences for people found to be the "main elements of riots", the judiciary said.

Reformist newspaper Etemad called on Iran's top security official Ali Shamkhani to stop "arrests" being made under "pretences that are sometimes false".

"Put pressure on (state broadcaster) IRIB to listen to other voices, give them a platform," the director of Etemad media group, Elias Hazrati, said in a front-page open letter.

He said it was "the fault" of those managing the media in Iran that Iranians were turning to Persian-speaking channels based outside the country, which are considered hostile by the authorities.

In its widening crackdown, Iran has restricted internet access and blocked social media platforms including Instagram and WhatsApp.

Washington, which has imposed new sanctions on Tehran over the crackdown, said it was taking steps to ensure Iranians would have online access.

"I spoke with major US tech firms and urged them to... provide the Iranian people with additional services and communications tools," said US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman.

Canada announced fresh sanctions on Thursday. Among their targets were Saeed Mortavazi, a prosecutor in Iran's Revolutionary Court, as well as former foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

An Iranian investigation found Amini had died on September 16 of a longstanding illness rather than reported beatings.

Her parents have denied this and filed a complaint against the officers involved. A cousin living in Iraq has told AFP she died of "a violent blow to the head".