Iran protesters tell of brutal police response as regime lashes out | Iran

Demonstrators raged on the streets of Iran until Saturday morning, defying authorities’ escalating crackdown on the growing protest movement.

Authorities shut down the internet on Thursday, largely cutting off protesters from the rest of the world, but videos leaked outside the country showed thousands of people on the streets of Tehran. They chanted “Death to Khamenei” and “Long Live the Shah”, referring to religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Crowds of protesters marched through the streets of Mashhad as fires burned around them, in a show of defiance to his hometown Khamenei, who condemned the protesters as “vandals” and accused the United States of fanning the flames of opposition.

Donald Trump threatened to intervene if Iranian officials killed protesters, drawing angry rebukes from officials in Tehran. On Friday, Trump said Iranian officials were in big trouble, adding: “You better not start shooting, because we’re going to start shooting too.”

The blocking of internet and mobile lines means it is difficult for international media to estimate the size of the largest demonstrations seen in Iran in recent years, which pose a serious challenge to regime rule.

However, in addition to several videos emerging from the country, activists who managed to escape the power outage via the Starlink satellite system spoke of angry protesters and the harsh response of the police.

“We stand up for the revolution, but we need help. Snipers have been deployed behind the Tarish Arg area” [a wealthy neighbourhood in Tehran]One protester in Tehran told the Guardian via occasional text messages sent via Starlink. Protesters said scores of people had been shot across the city, adding: “We saw hundreds of bodies.”

The Guardian was unable to independently verify the protesters’ claims, and human rights activists said reported human rights abuses were difficult to verify.

But another activist in Tehran told the Guardian they witnessed security forces firing live ammunition at protesters and saw a “very high” number of people killed. Human rights activists said that the allegations of police brutality were consistent with the statements given to them.

The US-based Human Rights Activist news agency said at least 65 people were killed and more than 2,300 people were detained by authorities in the violence surrounding the protests.

Iranian Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi warned on Friday that security forces could be preparing to carry out “a massacre under the guise of a general communications blackout” and said she had already received reports that hundreds of people were being treated for eye injuries in a single hospital in Tehran.

Protesters took to the streets on December 28 due to the worsening economy, but quickly began chanting anti-government slogans and demanding political reform.

Although Iran has experienced mass protests before, analysts say the battering of the regime during the 12-day war with Israel and the loss of Iranian-backed forces across the region have made the country more vulnerable.

Iranian officials have become increasingly confrontational in their rhetoric towards the protesters, suggesting they are infiltrated and supported by Israeli or US saboteurs. Iran’s military vowed on Saturday to thwart “conspiracies of the enemy” and warned that undermining the country’s security was a “red line”.

State television has tried to maintain an air of normalcy as the protests continue, describing them as minor deviations from an otherwise peaceful country. A state television presenter warned protesters not to go out and told parents to prevent their children from demonstrating. “If something happens, if someone is injured, if a bullet is fired or something happens to them, don’t complain,” they said.

While the international community gathered around the protesters, EU countries and the USA issued messages of support. “The United States supports the brave people of Iran,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement on the X channel on Saturday.

Iranian officials have tried the carrot-and-stick approach, distinguishing between “legitimate” protesters voicing economic grievances and “rebels” backed by foreign powers seeking to destabilize Iran. The government said it was in dialogue with the former, but human rights groups said general violence against protesters by security officials had increased.

A video verified by the Iranian Human Rights group showed distressed family members peering among a pile of bodies at Tehran’s Ghadir hospital on Thursday. The human rights group said the bodies belonged to protesters killed by authorities.

Fars news agency, a news agency close to Iran’s security services, published footage of what appeared to be forced confessions from protesters. Human rights activists have warned that forced confessions in Iran are often used as evidence in executions, despite being a human rights violation in themselves.

Despite the crackdown, more protests were planned for the weekend. Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s former shah, on Saturday called on protesters to take to the streets on Saturday and Sunday. He asked protesters to raise the pre-1979 “lion and sun” flag used during his father’s administration.

Pahlavi has emerged as an increasingly popular figure in the current protests, with large crowds chanting slogans in support of the Shah and calling for his return from exile. Protesters appear to have responded to recent calls for mobilization in Iran, seeing it as an alternative to the theocracy currently in power.

He also called on people in Iran’s security services to slow or help prevent an insider crackdown on protesters, claiming that tens of thousands of civil servants had expressed their desire to defect through an online platform operated by them.

As the ongoing internet outage makes it difficult to document both the momentum of the protests and the violations committed against demonstrators, activists are trying to find workarounds. They implored the media to continue covering the situation in Iran as they described worsening brutality.

“Please make sure you make it clear that they are killing people with live ammunition,” said an Iranian activist.