Khamenei kills, detains thousands, deems it ‘great victory’

Mohamed Abdel Ghaffar

“Let all friends and foes know that we deterred the enemy in the recent security war,” Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared in a speech last Tuesday as he was referring to a wave of deadly demonstrations that has gripped Iran since last Friday.

Signs of a severe crackdown over the protests were evident. Reports said hospitals were overfilled with people injured in the protests. They also said the Health Ministry had ordered all hospitals across Iran to cancel elective surgeries because of the influx of emergency cases.

This was deemed an official recognition by the head of the mullahs’ regime of violence against demonstrators demanding their peaceful rights, whom Khamenei called “enemies.”

The security services in Tehran did not retreat from the implementation of the instructions of the Supreme Leader in defeating the demonstrators, resulting in hundreds of deaths and injuries, and the arrest of dozens as part of a brutal security campaign.

Despite the widespread media blackout imposed by the mullahs’ regime on internal events in Iran, dozens of reports monitored the situation on the Iranian street via Telegram channels.

Iran’s student union said plainclothes agents of the pro-government Basij militia, hiding inside ambulances to evade restrictions on entering campuses, had seized more than 50 students at Tehran University after protests there.

While an official death toll from the protests has yet to be released, an Amnesty International report has highlighted the government’s use of “excessive force” that has left at least “106 protesters dead in 21 cities.”

The organization believes that the real death toll may be much higher, with some reports suggesting as many as 200 have been killed. State media have reported only a handful of protester deaths, as well as the deaths of at least four members of the security forces.

Video footage shows security forces using firearms, water cannons and tear gas to disperse protests and beating demonstrators with batons. Images of bullet casings left on the ground afterwards, as well as the resulting high death toll, indicate that they used live ammunition.

“The authorities must end this brutal and deadly crackdown immediately and show respect for human life,” said Philip Luther, Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.

“The frequency and persistence of lethal force used against peaceful protesters in these and previous mass protests, as well as the systematic impunity for security forces who kill protesters, raise serious fears that the intentional lethal use of firearms to crush protests has become a matter of state policy.”

Moreover, reliable sources and human rights activists have told Iran International that four hospitals in Karaj city held bodies of 118 protesters killed by security forces by Sunday, November 17.

The sources also said that the agents of the Intelligence Ministry transferred bodies of 36 dead protesters from a hospital in Tehran using meat freezers.

The Iranian government further said on Tuesday it will unblock the internet only when authorities are sure it will not be abused during violent demonstrations.

“Many professions and banks… have faced problems, and we have been trying to solve this,” government spokesman Ali Rabiei said, quoted by semi-official news agency ISNA. “The internet will come back gradually in some provinces where there are assurances the internet will not be abused,” he said.

“This is the most wide-scale internet shutdown that we’ve seen in Iran,” says Adrian Shahbaz, research director at the pro-democracy group Freedom House, which tracks internet censorship and restriction worldwide, according to Wired.

“It’s surprising to see the Iranian authorities block all internet connections rather than only international internet connections, because the latter is a tactic that they’ve used in the past. It could mean they are more fearful of their own people and worry that they cannot control the information space amidst these economic protests,” he added.