Iran protesters rally to mark 40 days since Amini’s death

Hundreds of protesters poured into the streets of a northwestern Iranian city on Wednesday to mark the watershed 40 days since the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, whose tragedy sparked Iran’s biggest antigovernment movement in over a decade.
Deaths are commemorated in Shiite Islam — as in many other traditions — again 40 days later, typically with an outpouring of grief. In Amini’s Kurdish hometown of Saqez, the birthplace of the nationwide unrest now roiling Iran, crowds snaked through the local cemetery and thronged her grave.
“Death to the dictator!” protesters cried.
State-run media announced that schools and universities in Iran’s northwestern region would close, purportedly to curb “the spread of influenza.”
In downtown Tehran, shops were shuttered and riot police were out in force. A group of schoolgirls marched through the streets, shouting against the government as cars stuck in traffic honked their support, witnesses said. Antigovernment chants also echoed from the University of Tehran campus.