DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Clashes between Iranian security forces and protesters angered by the death of a 22-year-old woman in police custody have killed at least nine people since violence erupted over the weekend, according to a Thursday tally by The Associated Press.
The extent of Iran’s ongoing unrest, the worst in several years, remains unclear as protesters in at least a dozen cities – venting anger at the country’s social repression and mounting crises – continue to meet security forces and paramilitary forces .
Widespread outages of Instagram and WhatsApp, which protesters use to share information about the government’s ongoing crackdown on dissidents, continued on Thursday. Authorities also appeared to cut off Internet access to the outside world, a tactic human rights activists say the government often uses during times of unrest.
In a country where radio and television stations are already state-controlled and journalists are regularly threatened with arrest, the paramilitary Revolutionary Guards on Thursday urged the judiciary to “ban anyone who spreads false news and rumours” about the unrest on social media, to be prosecuted.
The demonstrations in Iran began as an emotional outburst over the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman being held by the country’s vice squad for allegedly violating a strictly enforced dress code. Her death has drawn strong condemnation from the United States, the European Union and the United Nations.
Police say she died of a heart attack and was not abused, but her family have expressed doubts about that statement. Independent UN experts said Thursday she was reportedly severely beaten by vice squads without providing any evidence. They called for an impartial investigation to bring the perpetrators to justice.
The protests have escalated into an open challenge to the government over the past four days, with women taking off and burning their state-mandated headscarves in the streets and Iranians setting trash cans on fire and calling for the demise of the Islamic Republic itself.
“Death to the dictator!” was a common cry at the protests.
Demonstrations have rocked university campuses in Tehran and far western cities like Kermanshah. Though widespread, the unrest appears different from previous rounds of nationwide protests sparked by paperback troubles as Iran’s economy teeters under heavy US sanctions.
The riots that broke out in 2019 over the government’s abrupt gas price hike mobilized masses of working-class people in small towns. Hundreds were killed as security forces crushed the deadliest violence since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, according to human rights groups.
Iranian state media this week reported demonstrations by hundreds of people in at least 13 cities, including the capital Tehran. Videos online show security forces firing tear gas and water cannons to disperse the protests. London-based Amnesty International reported that officers also fired buckshot and metal balls and beat protesters with batons.
Footage shared on social media from the northern city of Tabriz shows a young man allegedly shot dead by security forces and bleeding to death in the street as protesters called for help.
At least nine people have died in the clashes, according to an AP tally based on statements by Iran’s state and semi-official media. In a statement Thursday, the Guard blamed “Iran’s enemies” for the unrest and said their “riot will fail.”
In Amini’s home province in north-western Kurdistan, the provincial police chief said four demonstrators were killed by live gunshots. In Kermanshah, the prosecutor said two protesters were killed by opposition groups and insisted the bullets were not fired by Iranian security forces.
Some protesters appear to have targeted security forces. Three men from the Basij, a volunteer force under the Guard, were killed in clashes in the cities of Shiraz, Tabriz and Mashhad, semi-official media reported, bringing the death toll to at least nine on both sides.
In Mashhad, the state-run IRNA agency reported that a police officer was hospitalized with severe burns after protesters tried to set him on fire.
The UN’s independent experts said the clashes killed at least eight people, including a woman and a 16-year-old boy, by their count, and dozens more were injured and arrested.
The clashes have left a trail of devastation. In Mazandaran province along the Caspian Sea coast, angry crowds damaged or set fire to over 40 government buildings and injured 76 security officials, Rouhollah Solgi, the deputy governor, said on Thursday.
As the protests spread, authorities shut down internet in parts of the country, according to NetBlocks, a London-based group that monitors internet access and called the restrictions the toughest since the November 2019 mass protests.
Iran has grappled with waves of protests in the recent past, mainly over a long-running economic crisis exacerbated by Western sanctions related to its nuclear program. Iranians also blame government corruption and mismanagement for soaring prices of basic goods, depreciating the currency and keeping unemployment high.
The Biden administration and European allies have been working to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, in which Iran restricted its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions lifting, but talks have been deadlocked for months.
