Iran Summons UK, Norwegian Ambassadors, Slams US After Finding Hand of Washington in Protests

Iran has been wracked by over a week of violent protests following the death of a young woman named Mahsa Amini. Amini died in a hospital in Tehran days after being detained by Iran’s Morality Police for breaking hijab rules. Protesters accuse police of beating her into a coma. Authorities have released security footage challenging these claims.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned UK Ambassador Simon Shercliff on Sunday to lodge a formal protest over Britain’s suspected role in helping to foment the anti-government protests taking place in Iranian cities.

“In response to the hostile atmosphere being created by the London-based Farsi-language media outlets against the Islamic Republic of Iran, the UK ambassador was summoned by the foreign ministry’s director general for Western Europe,” the Ministry announced in a statement.

The Norwegian Ambassador, Sigvald Hauge, was also summoned, with Tehran asking him to explain Oslo’s “interventionist stance” into Iran’s internal affairs over Norwegian parliament speaker Masud Gharahkhani’s comments on the protests.

Gharahkhani, who is Iranian-born, has spent the past week-and-a-half attacking the “Ayatollah regime” on Twitter and in media interviews in Farsi, Norwegian, and English, praising demonstrators he said were protesting for “justice, democracy and freedom” and saying he would have been “one of those fighting in the streets” if his parents had not emigrated to Norway in the 1980s.

Also on Sunday, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian slammed Washington over America’s suspected role in the unrest.

“Peaceful protest is the right of every nation. However, the US involvement in Iran’s affairs and support to rioters in implementing their destabilization project is in clear conflict with Washington’s diplomatic messages to Iran regarding the necessity of a nuclear deal and establishing stability in the region,” Amir-Abdollahian said, meeting with his Iraqi counterpart Fuad Hussein on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi promised to “steadfastly to investigate” the circumstances of Mahsa Amini’s death, but warned that threats to public order would not be tolerated after Iranian state television reported that 41 people had been killed in the protests, including both demonstrators and police officers. On Saturday, Raisi reiterated that authorities would “deal decisively with those who oppose the country’s security and tranquility.”

Last week, Iranian authorities released security cam footage from the Morality Police station where Amini was held before her death, showing her and other women entering the station and sitting down in an auditorium for a lecture on hijab rules. She was then seen approaching a minder, and after speaking to her about her attire for a few moments, grabbing her own head and collapsing on a chair in front of her. The footage then shows an ambulance crew taking her to hospital.

If you see this CCTV footage you can see Mehsa Amini collapsing after stroke, being attended immediately and then rushed to hospital. Again, I don't support hijab but what you see in Iran has all the templates of colour revolution. pic.twitter.com/rr1yAqIndL

— Abhijeet Tripathi (@AbhiNationalist) September 22, 2022

Amini was arrested on September 13, and died on September 16. She was 22 years old.

Protests over Amini’s death began in Tehran on September 17, and spread to other cities in the following days.

Government supporters began counter-protests on Friday, calling for the restoration of social order, accusing the US and Israel of whipping up dissent, and accusing anti-government demonstrators of setting fire to mosques, flags and Qur’ans and acting like “mercenaries serving foreign enemies.” A pro-government rally in Tehran on Sunday included a funeral procession to a policeman who was killed in the violence.

The unrest in Iran coincided with the wrapping up of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, where Tehran was formally accepted as a member of the security and economic bloc.

Iranian authorities have accused the US and of spending decades seeking to instigate regime change in the Islamic Republic. Iran left Washington’s orbit and became politically and militarily non-aligned after US-backed dictator Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was overthrown in the Iranian Revolution of 1979.