Iran Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei calls Donald Trump a criminal, blames US president for casualties
Arsalan Shahla
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei confirmed that “several thousand people” died in this month’s anti-government demonstrations; This was the first acknowledgment of the lethal dimension of the unrest.
At a public meeting broadcast on state television on Saturday, Khamenei said some of them were killed in “brutal and inhumane” ways, without providing details. He accused the United States and Israel of aiding the killings and said the Islamic Republic had evidence to support this claim.
Khamenei said Iran does not intend to push the country towards war, but will not allow domestic or international criminals to go unpunished.
He said US President Donald Trump was responsible for “the deaths, the damage, and the accusations he leveled against the Iranian people” and that Washington’s broader policy goal was to bring Iran under military, political and economic dominance.
The suggested death toll was in line with estimates by human rights groups and others that about 3,500 people died. The groups estimate that more than 22,000 people have been detained.
The protests took place during a record-long internet outage for Iran’s population of about 92 million.
Local media had previously reported that internet connectivity had been partially restored, although most residents appeared to have been largely cut off from the outside world for the ninth day.
The Iranian government shut down internet and mobile phone services on January 8 to quell growing unrest sparked by the currency crisis late last month.
“Internet access for some subscribers has now been restored,” the semi-official Mehr news agency said, without specifying what restrictions had been lifted or whether users had regained access to international platforms and services.
The semi-official Fars news agency also reported that mobile text messaging had been reactivated after previously being blocked.
Internet traffic monitoring group NetBlocks said there was a “very slight increase” in connectivity on Saturday, adding that overall access remained at about 2 percent of normal levels and “there are no signs of a significant return.”
Users in Iran appeared largely offline as of early Saturday afternoon local time; Platforms such as Telegram, Instagram and X, which they had previously accessed via virtual private networks (VPNs), showed little sign of activity.
Near-total communications blackouts have become a familiar tool for Islamic Republic officials in critical situations, from nationwide protests this month to the June conflict with Israel. This left a large portion of the population disconnected from the global internet and redirected users to a local, government-controlled network that operated independently of the wider network.
NetBlocks said in a statement on Friday that the current outage exceeds the internet blackout imposed during the country’s 2019 protests.
Earlier on Saturday, Fars quoted unnamed officials as saying that internet and other communication services would be gradually restored, but that some restrictions would remain “as long as security conditions require.”
Bloomberg
