 "Iran unrest: Ayatollah regime cracks down on protesters, dozens reported killed during internet blackout")
At least 78 protesters have been killed in Iran as the nationwide anti-government protests continue to rock the West Asian nation. While the official figures are yet to be released, the estimation was provided by a US-based Iranian human rights group, HRANA. The group maintained that the 78 deaths have taken place in the past 14 days as the situation continues to get worse.
In a news release on Saturday, HRNA said that at least 116 have died in the protests in total, including 38 security personnel. The group noted that at least seven of the protesters killed were under the age of 18. The group also reported that at least 2,638 people had been arrested while conducting demonstrations across the country.
“Based on aggregated data up to the end of the fourteenth day, 574 protest locations have been identified in 185 cities across all 31 provinces of the country,” the group said in a statement on Saturday. The number of locations is cumulative, starting from the date the protests began on December 28.
“Examination of the causes of death shows that most victims were killed by live ammunition or pellet gunfire, predominantly from close range,” the HRANA news release said. Meanwhile, an eyewitness told CNN earlier that the Iranian authorities had hit one of her in-laws with pellets at a protest on Friday.
Internet blackout persists
The internet blackout, which started on Thursday evening, continued to persist in Iran, and the clashes between the protesters and the Iranian authorities escalated. Authorities cut internet access and telephone lines immediately after Thursday’s protests in the capital, Tehran, and other major cities began.
However, the blackout still did not immediately prevent the posting and sharing of videos from the country. “National blackouts tend to be the regime’s go-to strategy when deadly force is about to get used against protesters,” Alp Toker, director of cybersecurity watchdog NetBlocks, told CNN earlier this week, “with the goal being to prevent the spread of news of what’s happening on the ground, and also to limit international scrutiny.”
The Iranians have been protesting because they have been grappling with a major cost-of-living crisis and currency collapse. While multiple sanctions have crippled the Iranian economy for decades, the 12-day Iran-Israel war, which also included strikes from the US, put a major dent in the country’s already struggling economy.
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