As many as 15 people were shot dead in Iran, including members of the security forces and a nine-year-old boy, in separate incidents as the country experienced one of the most serious and widespread nights of protests in nine weeks.
On the anniversary of the uprising in 2019, state news agencies accused terrorists on two motorcycles of killing seven people at a shopping mall in the southern city of Izeh Khuzesta. However, protesters said members of the Basij militia went berserk and killed, among others, a nine-year-old boy who was sitting in a car with his father. State news agencies said two volunteer Basij police officers were among the dead and 10 were wounded.
Another five people were killed in the Isfahan area, including security forces, in separate shootings. Reports of more deaths in Kurdistan brought the overnight death toll to 15.
Internal Iranian news agencies followed the government line that unknown anti-government forces or Islamic State terrorists were responsible, but witnesses said unarmed civilians were shot.
The total number of dead during the latest protests has risen to 348, according to the Harana human rights agency, although these numbers cannot be verified. Seminaries were set on fire in at least three cities.
Government news agencies said the killings may be a sign that the protests are turning into an armed uprising. There will be an investigation into the bullets in the bodies of those shot dead, and now a massive propaganda battle is likely to take place in which the government will claim that the protests are the hotbed of the “Syrianization” of Iran and the collapse of Iran. public order.
Videos posted on social media showed shops closed in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar while protesters chanted anti-government slogans. But the state says there is no enthusiasm for the strikes and that organized gangs have harassed business owners who have been pressured to pull down their shutters.
The regime’s problem, acknowledged by many reformist politicians and academics in Iran, is that many protesters have long since stopped getting their news from what they see as utterly discredited official sources, relying instead on either internal social media or international satellite Persian speaking broadcasts. channels such as BBC Persian or Iran International.
At least five protesters have now been officially sentenced to death, according to the Media Center for Justice, one for allegedly setting fire to a government building.
The protests began over the death of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, but have since turned into a wider protest against the regime, which French President Emmanuel Macron likened to a revolution.
Speaking in Bali on Wednesday, Macron said: “Something that has changed [in Iran] is this revolution of women, young people from Iran, defending universal values like gender equality. It is important to appreciate the courage and legitimacy of this struggle.”
Iran’s Interior Minister Ahmad Vahiidi said several alleged French secret service agents had been arrested. He said: “People of other nationalities were arrested in the riots, some of whom played a big role. There were elements from the French intelligence service and they will be dealt with according to the law.
Seven French nationals were arrested, possibly in response to Macron’s meeting with exiled Iranians opposed to the regime.
France is one of a group of Western countries set to vote in Vienna this week to vote no-confidence against Iran at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) governing board. The draft condemns Iran for its failure to cooperate with UN nuclear inspectors over its nuclear program and states that Iran’s uranium stockpile is now 18 times the limit set in the original 2011 nuclear deal.
Deputy US envoy to the IAEA Louis Bono told the board on Wednesday that there is no valid peaceful justification for Iran’s production of 60% enriched uranium.
IAEA Director Raphael Grossi said on Wednesday that the now six-month absence of UN inspectors means there is now massive activity of which the IAEA was unaware. He still hopes to arrange a visit to Tehran. Iran has threatened to cancel any visit if the no-confidence motion is passed.
However, the West seems to be rethinking its entire strategy towards Iran, something that the Iranian political establishment is only beginning to realize. Domestic protests and evidence that Iran is supplying Russia with drones to help attack Ukraine have left advocates of reviving the nuclear deal jockeying for political ground. Criticism so far in Iran for the decision to side with Russia over Ukraine, given the inevitable wider diplomatic fallout, has not been strong enough to challenge the hardliners’ grip on foreign policy.