TEHRAN - Shopkeepers and factory workers went on strike in Iran as women-led nationwide protests sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini entered a sixth week, activists said.
The death of 22-year-old Amini, after her arrest for allegedly breaching Iran's strict dress code for women, has fuelled the biggest protests seen in the Islamic republic for years.
Young women have led the charge, removing their headscarves, chanting anti-government slogans and confronting the security forces, despite a crackdown that human rights groups say has killed at least 122 people.
Activists issued a call for fresh demonstrations as Iran's working week began on Saturday, but it was difficult to gauge the turnout because of curbs on internet access.
"On Saturday... We will be together for freedom," activist Atena Daemi said in a Twitter post that bore an image of a bare-headed woman raising her fist.
Iran's deputy interior minister Majid Mirahmadi told state media the protests were in their "final days".
"There are various gatherings in some universities, which are decreasing every day, and the riots are going through their final days," he said.
The 1500tasvir social media channel told AFP there were "strikes in a couple of cities including Sanandaj, Bukan and Saqez", while adding it was difficult to see evidence of them online as "the internet connection is too slow".
Saqez, in the western province of Kurdistan, is Amini's home town, where anger flared at her burial last month, helping trigger the protest movement.
Verified footage spread on social media showed dozens of students holding Iranian flags and chanting outside one of Iran's largest campuses, Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran.
Some female students among them did not wear the mandatory headscarf.
In northwestern Iran, dozens of students clapped and chanted slogans during a protest at the Tabriz University of Medical Sciences, verified footage showed.