Iran protesters tell of brutal police response as regime lashes out with activists saying security forces 'firing live ammunition at protesters'
Iran protesters tell of brutal police response as regime lashes out with activists saying security forces 'firing live ammunition at protesters'
Iran protesters tell of brutal police response as regime lashes out
Demonstrators raged in the streets of Iran into Saturday morning, defying an escalating crackdown by authorities against the growing protest movement.
An internet shutdown imposed by the authorities on Thursday has largely cut the protesters off from the rest of the world, but videos that trickled out of the country showed thousands of people in the streets of Tehran. They chanted: “Death to Khamenei,” in reference to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and: “Long live the shah.”
Crowds of protesters marched through the streets of Mashhad as fires burned around them, a show of defiance in the home town of Khamenei, who has condemned the protesters as “vandals” and blamed the US for fanning the flames of dissent.
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“We’re standing up for a revolution, but we need help. Snipers have been stationed behind the Tarish Arg area [a wealthy neighbourhood in Tehran],” a protester in Tehran told the Guardian via sporadic text messages sent via Starlink. The protester said many people had been shot at across the city, adding: “We saw hundreds of bodies.”
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Another activist in Tehran [said] that they had witnessed security forces firing live ammunition at protesters and saw a “very high” number killed, while human rights activists said the claims of police brutality were consistent with testimony they had been given.
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The Iranian Nobel peace prize winner Shirin Ebadi warned [...] that security forces could be preparing to commit a “massacre under the cover of a sweeping communications blackout”, and said she had already received reports of hundreds of people being treated for eye injuries at a single Tehran hospital.
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A video verified by Iran Human Rights group showed distressed family members looking through a pile of bodies in Ghadir hospital in Tehran on Thursday. The rights group said that the bodies were of protesters killed by authorities.
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[Edit typo.]