Dozens feared dead as largest anti-govt protests intensify in Iran

By Arsalan Shahla

 

The largest anti-government demonstrations to rock Iran in recent years intensified Friday night, fueling fears of growing fatalities as authorities battle to suppress the protests.    

Social media footage trickling out of Iran amid a blanket shutdown of internet and telecommunications networks showed hundreds of thousands marching and chanting anti-regime slogans, with graphic scenes of bodies lying in blood. Other clips showed that the elderly made up many of the protesters.

 

Separate mobile-camera footage from Fardis, a city roughly 50 kilometers (31 miles) west of Tehran, showed at least seven bodies covered in blood inside a building. In the videos, people are seen bandaging the head and patching an eye of another individual, while a voice says at least 10 people were killed by gunfire. None of the footage could be independently verified by Bloomberg.

 

 

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said Friday that at least 65 people have been killed and 2,311 arrested since protests began on Dec. 28, when traders in Tehran protested a currency crisis and worsening living conditions. The demonstrations have since spread nationwide.

 

Thirty-eight of the fatalities were identified in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, Ilam, Kermanshah, and Fars provinces in central and western Iran, according to the Human Rights Activists group. Time magazine reported Friday that at least 217 protesters have died, mostly by live ammunition, citing a doctor in Tehran.

 

The protests over Thursday and Friday — Iran’s weekend — followed a call by Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s former shah who’s positioning himself as an opposition leader. He urged demonstrators again to return to the streets after 6 p.m. local time on Saturday and Sunday. 

 

“Our goal is no longer merely to take to the streets. The goal is to prepare to seize city centers and hold them,” the US-based, 65-year-old Pahlavi said in an X post.

 

State TV played down the protests on Saturday, saying security forces had largely contained the demonstrations on Friday after what it described as unrest by “armed terrorists” in Tehran and other cities the night before.

 

Iranian authorities have so far refrained from releasing an official tally of fatalities among protesters or security forces. State-affiliated media reported at least a dozen deaths among police and Basij volunteer militia forces since Thursday. The semi-official Tasnim news agency said “armed terrorists” killed “several” police personnel in gunfire on Thursday.

 

Violence also broke out in Zahedan, a Sunni-majority city in south-western Iran and a long-standing flashpoint for deadly security incidents. The Norwegian-registered Hengaw Organization for Human Rights said security forces opened fire on demonstrators after Friday prayers, leaving several wounded.

 

Chants recorded in footage included “Death to the dictator,” “No Gaza, no Lebanon, my life for Iran,” and “This is the year of blood; Seyyed Ali will be toppled,” referring to Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who on Friday repeated his pledge to quash protesters.

 

Demonstrators were also seen chanting, “This is the last battle; the Pahlavi returns,” and waving flags bearing the Lion and Sun, the former state emblem abolished after the 1979 Islamic Republic revolution that toppled the shah.

 

While the US has so far been reluctant to embrace Pahlavi as a potential replacement for the Iranian government, President Donald Trump has warned the regime repeatedly against killing protesters. 

 

On Friday, the leaders of France, the UK and Germany also called on the regime to “exercise restraint, to refrain from violence, and to uphold the fundamental rights of Iran’s citizens.”