Iran protests' death toll rises to 75 as unrest deepens

Tehran: Iranians have taken to the streets for a 10th consecutive night on Monday to protest against the death of Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in morality police custody.

Officially at least 41 people have died since the unrest began, mostly protesters but including members of the security forces, but sources say the real figure is higher.

Norway-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR) said on Monday evening that the death toll was at least 75, but noted that ongoing internet blackouts were making it increasingly difficult to confirm fatalities in a context where the women-led protests have spread to scores of cities.

Officials said Monday they arrested more than 1,200 people as the dragnet widens against the nationwide demonstrations over Amini's death following her arrest for allegedly breaching the country's strict rules on hijab headscarves and modest clothing.

Protesters took to the streets again on Monday night -- as they have every night since Amini's death on September 16 -- in Tehran and elsewhere, witnesses told AFP.

Tehran crowds shouted "death to the dictator", calling for the end of the more than the three-decade rule of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 83.

Video shot from several floors above street level, purportedly in the city of Tabriz, showed people protesting the sound of tear gas canisters being fired by security forces, in images published by Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR).

Women in Sanandaj, Kurdistan province, twirled their headscarves above their heads in defiance while car drivers sounded their horns in solidarity, in a video shared by Hengaw, a Kurdish rights organization likewise based in Norway.

Tensions with Western powers grew as Germany summoned the Iranian ambassador and Canada announced sanctions, a day after the European Union deplored the crackdown and Tehran called in the British and Norwegian envoys.

"We call on the international community to decisively and unitedly take practical steps to stop the killing and torture of protesters," said IHR's director Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam.

Video footage and death certificates obtained by IHR showed that "live ammunition is being directly fired at protesters," he alleged.

Iranian riot police in black body armor have beaten protesters with truncheons in running street battles, and students have torn down large pictures of the supreme leader and his predecessor Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, in recent video footage published by AFP.

Authorities say about 450 people have been arrested in northern Mazandaran province, on top of over 700 reported Saturday in neighboring Gilan, along with dozens in several other regions.

Twenty journalists are among those arrested, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

"Rioters have attacked government buildings and damaged public property," Mazandaran's chief prosecutor Mohammad Karimi told the official news agency IRNA, charging that they were steered by "foreign anti-revolutionary agents".

Tehran police have been deployed "24 hours a day" and many have not slept, said the Iranian judiciary chief, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, thanking exhausted officers and the capital's police chief during a visit to their headquarters Sunday, in a video posted by Mizan Online.

Despite sweeping internet restrictions, including blocks on Instagram and WhatsApp, new videos shared widely on social media showed protests Sunday night in Tehran and cities including Yazd, Isfahan, and Bushehr on the Persian Gulf.