Protests rocked Iran again overnight after an apparent slowdown in recent weeks, with demonstrators calling for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic, video posts online showed on Friday.
The marches in numerous cities including Tehran, Sanandaj, Esfahan and Yazd began on Thursday evening and went on into the night marked 40 days since the execution of two protesters last month.
Mohammad Mehdi Karami and Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini were hanged on Jan. 8. Two others were executed in December.
The protests that have swept across Iran began last September after the death in custody of 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman Jina Mahsa Amini for violating the strict hijab policy of the regime, which requires women to entirely cover their hair and bodies.
The protests rapidly escalated into calls to overthrow Iran’s theocracy, established after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. It marked one of the biggest challenges to Iranian clerical rule in more than four decades.
At least 507 protesters have been killed and more than 18,500 people have been arrested, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that has closely monitored the unrest.
