JEDDAH: Iranian security forces opened fire on Wednesday on thousands of mourners marking 40 days since the death of a young Kurdish woman that sparked a wave of nationwide protests.

Mahsa Amini, 22, died on Sept. 16, three days after Iran’s morality police arrested her in Tehran for wearing her hijab in an “insufficiently modest” manner. Anger erupted at her funeral, followed by Iran’s biggest wave of unrest for years.

On Wednesday, at least 10,000 Iranians defied heightened security measures and poured into Saqez in Kurdistan province, Amini’s home town, to pay tribute at her grave at the end of the traditional mourning period.

Noisily clapping, shouting and honking car horns, mourners packed the road from Saqez to the Aichi cemetery 8 km away. Some chanted “Death to the dictator,” along with “This year is the year of blood, Ali Khamenei will be toppled,” and “Kurdistan, Kurdistan, the graveyard of fascists.”

A police checkpoint was torched and fires burned along a bridge in the Qavakh neighborhood of Saqez. 

“Security forces have shot tear gas and opened fire on people in Zindan Square, Saqez city,” said Hengaw, a rights group in Norway that monitors violations in Iran’s Kurdish regions.

Hengaw said workers went on strike in Saqez as well as Divandarreh, Marivan, Kamyaran and Sanandaj, and in Javanrud and Ravansar in the western province of Kermanshah. It said Iranian football stars Ali Daei and Hamed Lak had traveled to Saqez to take part in the 40th day service.