Security forces deploy as shops in western Iran strike on Mahsa Amini anniversary

The general shutdown followed a joint call by an alliance of Iranian Kurdish political groups for businesses to close and workers to stay home on the anniversary of the 22-year-old’s death in morality police custody, an event that ignited the nationwide Woman, Life, Freedom movement. Tensions were highest in Saqqez, Amini's hometown. Authorities deployed heavy security around the city and the nearby Aichi cemetery, where she is buried. Local rights group Kurdpa reported that authorities released water from the nearby Cheragh-Veis dam for a third consecutive year to submerge secondary routes to her grave, while installing elevated structures to mount...