In two months of protests brought on by the death of Mahsa Amini, the nation's clerical leadership under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is confronted with its greatest challenge since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
The government reacted with a crackdown that, according to the Olso-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR), resulted in the deaths of at least 342 people, the death sentences of six others, and the arrest of thousands more.
According to IHR, protesters have been killed in 22 of Iran's 31 provinces, including 123 in Sistan-Baluchistan and 32 in Kurdistan, where Amini was born, and where unrest erupted in the town of Bukan overnight.
"Last night, after IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) forces attacked Shahid Gholi Pur Hospital in Bukan, they seized Shahryar Mohammadi's body and buried him secretly," the Hengaw rights group said.
Hengaw, which monitors abuses in Kurdish areas, told AFP that "these forces opened fire on his family and inflicted injuries on at least five people."
In order to prevent further violence from erupting at the funerals of protesters they have killed, activists accuse Iran's security forces of performing covert burials.
Hengaw reported on Saturday that security forces also opened fire on demonstrators in the Kurdistan province town of Divandarreh, injuring several people.
Since the death of Amini on September 16 while in custody, Iran has accused its foreign adversaries, including Britain, Israel, and the United States, of inciting violence during protests.
Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman of Kurdish descent, passed away three days after being detained by Tehran's notorious morality police for allegedly breaking the country's strict hijab law.
In a statement, Iran's foreign ministry hit out at the "deliberate silence of foreign promoters of chaos and violence in Iran in the face of... terrorist operations in several Iranian cities".
"It is the duty of the international community and international assemblies to condemn the recent terrorist acts in Iran and not to provide a safe haven for extremists," it added.
In two separate attacks on Wednesday in the cities of Izeh and Isfahan, 10 people were killed, including a woman, two children, and a security guard, according to state media and a hospital source.
According to state news agency IRNA, two members of Iran's pro-government Basij paramilitary force were fatally stabbed while attempting to intervene against "rioters" in the northeastern city of Mashhad.
(With inputs from AFP)
