Iran crackdown fears grow as protests persist

Rights groups expressed alarm on Saturday that Iranian authorities were intensifying a deadly crackdown under cover of an internet blackout, after another night of mass protests in the biggest demonstrations to face the Islamic Republic in years.

The two weeks of demonstrations have posed one of the biggest challenges to the theocratic authorities who have ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, although supreme leader Ali Khamenei has expressed defiance and blamed the United States.

Following the movement’s largest protests yet on Thursday, new demonstrations took place late Friday, according to images verified by AFP and other videos published on social media.

This was despite an internet shutdown imposed by the authorities, with monitor Netblocks saying Saturday evening that “Iran has now been offline for 48 hours.”

Amnesty International said it was analysing “distressing reports that security forces have intensified their unlawful use of lethal force against protesters” since Thursday in an escalation “that has led to further deaths and injuries.”

Norway-based Iran Human Rights group has said at least 51 people have been killed in the crackdown so far, warning the actual toll could be higher.

It posted images it said were of bodies of people shot dead in the protests on the floor of Alghadir hospital in eastern Tehran.

“These images provide further evidence of the excessive and lethal use of force against protesters,” IHR said.

‘Seize city centers’

In Tehran’s Saadatabad district, people banged pots and chanted anti-government slogans including “death to Khamenei” as cars honked in support, a video verified by AFP showed.

Other images disseminated on social media and by Persian-language television channels outside Iran showed similarly large protests elsewhere in the capital, as well as in the eastern city of Mashhad, Tabriz in the north and the holy city of Qom.

In the western city of Hamedan, a man was shown waving a shah-era Iranian flag featuring the lion and the sun amid fires and people dancing.

The same flag briefly replaced the current Iranian flag over the country’s embassy in London, when protesters managed to reach the building’s balcony, witnesses told AFP.

Reza Pahlavi, the US-based son of Iran’s ousted shah, hailed the “magnificent” turnout on Friday and urged Iranians to stage more targeted protests on Saturday and Sunday.

“Our goal is no longer just to take to the streets. The goal is to prepare to seize and hold city centres,” Pahlavi said in a video message on social media.