The anti-government protests, which began at 22-year-old Mahsa Amini's funeral on Sept. 17 in the Kurdish town of Saqez, have spiralled into the biggest show of opposition to Iran's authorities in years, with many calling for the end of more than four decades of Islamic clerical rule.Students had been protesting at numerous universities on Sunday and demonstrations were held in several cities such as Tehran, Yazd, Kermanshah, Sanandaj, Shiraz and Mashhad, with participants chanting "independence, freedom, death to Khamenei," earlier social media posts showed.The protests have not abated despite a growing death toll and the crackdown by security forces using tear gas, clubs, and in some cases, according to videos on social media and rights groups, live ammunition.Iran Human Rights, a Norway-based group, in a statement said that "so far 133 people had been killed across Iran", including more than 40 people it said died in clashes last week in Zahedan, capital of the southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province.Amini's death and the crackdown have drawn international criticism of Iran's rulers, who in turn accuse the United States and some European countries of exploiting the unrest to try to destabilise the Islamic Republic."