At Least 2 Dead in Iran Protests

At least two demonstrators were reportedly killed during clashes between anti-government protesters and police in Iran on Saturday.

A video posted on social media purported to show two protesters after they were shot dead by riot police in the western town of Dorud when protests turned violent late Saturday.

VOA’s Persian service identified the victims as Hamzeh Lashni and Hossein Reshno. A reporter for the Persian service had spoken to the victims’ families.

Another video posted to social media also purported to show demonstrators appearing to attack government buildings and apparently participating in violent conflicts with police. Unverified videos posted to social media seemed to show thousands of people protesting in several cities throughout Iran.

AFP reported that cellphone and internet service was disrupted in Tehran shortly before midnight Saturday. It also quoted Iran’s state news channel IRINN as saying it had been banned from covering the anti-government protests.

Cautions on social media use

Iran’s telecommunications minister, Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, sent a public message to the CEO of the messaging service Telegram, telling him, “A Telegram channel is encouraging hateful conduct: use Molotov cocktails, armed uprising, and social unrest.” Telegram responded by saying it had suspended the account.

Telegram CEO Pavel Durov also tweeted a public message, explaining why the account had been suspended.

“A Telegram channel (amadnews) started to instruct their subscribers to use Molotov cocktail against police and got suspended due to our ‘no calls for violence’ rule. Be careful,” Durov said. “There are lines one shouldn’t cross.”

Earlier Saturday, hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets surrounding the University of Tehran, shouting slogans against the government and blocking traffic. Meanwhile, pro-government demonstrators massed around the university entrance and shouted, “Death to the seditionists.”

A prominent cleric, Ayatollah Mohsen Araki, told thousands of pro-government demonstrators in Tehran that “the enemy” wanted to use social media and economic issues to “foment a new sedition.”

Araki’s comments echoed an earlier statement by Senior Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri, who said Friday that some political factions were using the economy as an excuse to criticize the government.

State television broadcast images of the protests Saturday, something it rarely does, including an acknowledgment that some of the demonstrators were chanting the name of Iran’s last shah, who fled the country during the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Little information about the protests is available because state-run and semiofficial news media have not widely reported on the demonstrations.

​Anti-Rouhani rhetoric

The calls were seen as a cry against President Hassan Rouhani, who won re-election in May with promises to revive the economy.

Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal is seen as Rouhani’s major achievement. The deal, made with the United States and five other world powers, curbed Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for relief from international sanctions. But economic growth has not followed, and people are struggling to cope with the high cost of living.

U.S. President Donald Trump denounced the Iranian government Saturday, tweeting excerpts from his September 19 speech to the U.N. General Assembly. He charged Rouhani’s government and those before it have long oppressed the Iranian people.

The demonstrations this week were the largest since 2009, when pro-reform protests followed a disputed presidential election and months of unrest.

Three days of protests

Demonstrations were held in several cities and towns Thursday and Friday in protest against rising prices and the country’s high unemployment rate. Iran’s unemployment rate is 12.4 percent, its economy stagnant and inflation rampant.

Interior Minister Abdolrahman Rahmani Fazli on Saturday cautioned against more anti-government action.

“We urge all those who receive these calls to protest not to participate in these illegal gatherings as they will create problems for themselves and other citizens,” he said.

In a statement Friday, the U.S. State Department said, “Iran’s leaders have turned a wealthy country with a rich history and culture into an economically depleted rogue state, whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed and chaos.”

The State Department urged “all nations to publicly support the Iranian people and their demands for basic rights and an end to corruption.”

VOA's Persian service contributed to this report.

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