Death toll in violence surrounding protests challenging Iran's theocracy reaches 116, activists say
Dubai (AP): Nationwide protests challenging Iran's theocracy reached the two-week mark Sunday, as the death toll in violence surrounding the demonstrations reached at least 116 people killed, activists said.
With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. But the death toll in the protests has grown to at least 116 and over 2,600 others detained, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. The agency has been accurate in multiple rounds of previous unrest in Iran.
Iranian state TV is reporting on security force casualties while portraying control over the nation, without discussing dead demonstrators, whom it increasingly refers to as “terrorists".
However, it also acknowledged protests went on into Sunday morning, with demonstrations in Tehran and in the holy city of Mashhad to the northeast.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has signalled a coming clampdown, despite US warnings. Tehran escalated its threats Saturday, with the Iran's attorney general, Mohammad Movahedi Azad, warning that anyone taking part in protests will be considered an “enemy of God,” a death-penalty charge.
The statement carried by Iranian state television said even those who “helped rioters” would face the charge.
“Prosecutors must carefully and without delay, by issuing indictments, prepare the grounds for the trial and decisive confrontation with those who, by betraying the nation and creating insecurity, seek foreign domination over the country,” the statement read. “Proceedings must be conducted without leniency, compassion or indulgence.”
US President Donald Trump offered support for the protesters, saying on social media that “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!”
The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, reporting citing anonymous US officials, said on Saturday night that Trump had been given military options for a strike on Iran, but hadn't made a final decision.
The State Department separately warned: “Do not play games with President Trump. When he says he'll do something, he means it.”
Saturday marked the start of the work week in Iran, but many schools and universities reportedly held online classes, Iranian state TV reported. Internal Iranian government websites are believed to be functioning.
State TV repeatedly played a driving, martial orchestral arrangement from the “Epic of Khorramshahr” by Iranian composer Majid Entezami, while showing pro-government demonstrations.
The song, aired repeatedly during the 12-day war launched by Israel, honours Iran's 1982 liberation of the city of Khorramshahr during the Iran-Iraq war. It has been used in videos of protesting women cutting away their hair to protest the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini as well.
It also repeatedly aired video of purported protesters shooting at security forces with firearms.
In one online video verified by The Associated Press, protesters demonstrated Friday in northern Tehran's Saadat Abad area, with what appeared to be thousands on the street.
“Death to Khamenei!” a man chanted.
The semiofficial Fars news agency, believed to be close to Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and one of the few media outlets able to publish to the outside world, released surveillance camera footage of what it said came from demonstrations in Isfahan.
In it, a protester appeared to fire a long gun, while others set fires and threw gasoline bombs at what appeared to be a government compound.
The Young Journalists' Club, associated with state TV, reported that protesters killed three members of the Guard's all-volunteer Basij force in the city of Gachsaran.
It also reported a security official was stabbed to death in Hamadan province, a police officer killed in the port city of Bandar Abbas and another in Gilan, as well as one person slain in Mashhad.
The semiofficial Tasnim news agency, also close to the Guard, claimed authorities detained nearly 200 people belonging to what it described as “operational terrorist teams.” It alleged those arrested had weapons including firearms, grenades and gasoline bombs.
State television also aired footage of a funeral service attended by hundreds in Qom, a Shiite seminary city just south of Tehran.
Iran's theocracy cut off the nation from the internet and international telephone calls on Thursday, though it allowed some state-owned and semiofficial media to publish. Qatar's state-funded Al Jazeera news network reported live from Iran, but they appeared to be the only major foreign outlet able to work.
Iran's exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who called for protests Thursday and Friday, asked in his latest message for demonstrators to take to the streets Saturday and Sunday. He urged protesters to carry Iran's old lion-and-sun flag and other national symbols used during the time of the shah to “claim public spaces as your own.”
Pahlavi's support of and from Israel has drawn criticism in the past — particularly after the 12-day war. Demonstrators have shouted in support of the shah in some protests, but it isn't clear whether that's support for Pahlavi himself or a desire to return to a time before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Online video purported to show protests ongoing Saturday night as well.
The demonstrations began Dec 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country's economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear programme. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran's theocracy.
Airlines have cancelled some flights into Iran over the demonstrations. Austrian Airlines said Saturday it had decided to suspend its flights to Iran “as a precautionary measure” through Monday. Turkish Airlines earlier announced the cancellation of 17 flights to three cities in Iran.
Meanwhile, concern is growing that the internet shutdown will allow Iran's security forces to go on a bloody crackdown, as they have in other rounds of demonstrations. Ali Rahmani, the son of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi who is imprisoned in Iran, noted that security forces killed hundreds in a 2019 protest “so we can only fear the worst.”
“They are fighting, and losing their lives, against a dictatorial regime,” Rahmani said.
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NATO, others turn down US call for help in Hormuz: Trump
Washington (PTI): President Donald Trump on Tuesday said NATO and most of US' other allies have rejected his calls to help secure the Strait of Hormuz as the war with Iran entered the third week.
In a social media post, Trump asserted that Iran’s military has been “decimated” and he no longer felt the need for assistance from NATO countries or anyone else.
Last week, Trump had sought help from European nations and others who depend on oil supplies transiting from the Hormuz Strait to safeguard the critical waterway.
“The United States has been informed by most of our NATO “Allies” that they don’t want to get involved with our Military Operation against the Terrorist Regime of Iran, in the Middle East, this, despite the fact that almost every Country strongly agreed with what we are doing, and that Iran cannot, in any way, shape, or form, be allowed to have a Nuclear Weapon,” the US President said in a post on Truth Social.
Iran's attacks on Gulf nations and its grip on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world's oil is transported, have sparked increasing concerns of a global energy crisis and are unnerving the world economy.
“I am not surprised by their action, however, because I always considered NATO, where we spend Hundreds of Billions of Dollars per year protecting these same Countries, to be a one-way street — We will protect them, but they will do nothing for us, in particular, in a time of need,” Trump said.
He said Australia, Japan and South Korea too have turned down his call for help.
“Fortunately, we have decimated Iran’s Military – Their Navy is gone, their Air Force is gone, their Anti-Aircraft and Radar is gone and perhaps, most importantly, their Leaders, at virtually every level, are gone, never to threaten us, our Middle Eastern Allies, or the World, again,” Trump said.
He said that given the scale of recent military successes, the US no longer "need" or desires assistance from NATO countries, adding that it never relied on such support in the first place.
Speaking as President of the United States, the "most powerful" country in the world, "we do not need" help from anyone, Trump said.
The West Asia conflict began on February 28 when the US-Israeli combine conducted airstrikes on Iran.
The Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that connects the Persian Gulf to the open ocean, has effectively been shut following the US and Israel attack on Iran and Tehran's sweeping retaliation.
However, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had said that from Tehran's "perspective", the strait is "open". "It is only closed to Iran's enemies, to those who carried out unjust aggression against our country and to their allies.”
Earlier in the day, a second Indian-flagged LPG tanker, Nanda Devi, reached the country after safely sailing from the war-hit Strait of Hormuz. On Monday, the first ship, Shivalik, reached Mundra port in Gujarat.
As of now, 22 Indian vessels remain on the west side and two on the east side of the strait.
Indian authorities are in constant touch with all the relevant stakeholders in the region to secure the safe passage of the remaining ships, officials said.
