Iran protest shooting and beatings emerge as web blackout ends

FOOTAGE is emerging of the violent crackdown on protesters in Iran after the internet was restored following a week-long blackout.

Protests, which began on Nov 15 after a petrol price hike, soon grew into a wave of anti-government unrest that saw at least 100 banks and dozens of buildings set on fire in the worst violence since authorities quelled a “Green Revolution” in 2009.

In one video, machine guns are fired at rock-throwing protesters. Another shows Revolutionary Guard volunteers on motorcycles chasing demonstrators and, in a different location, plainclothes security forces beat and drag a man off the street to an unknown fate.

A video from Kermanshah, 260 miles south-west of Tehran, purports to be of security forces in civilian clothes wielding nightsticks, dragging a man by the hair on his head. “Look, [the agents] wear styles like the youth,” a man off-camera says, swearing at them.

Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s president, claimed last Thursday that the uprising had been contained. With no internet, it was difficult to prove otherwise, but since the blackout was lifted over the weekend, a flood of videos have been published on social media sites.

The Iranian government can throttle or block access because there are only two principal gateways, known as exchanges, that connect the country to the global internet, and the government controls both.

The shutdown was unprecedented in its scale. Amin Sabeti, a researcher with digital security NGO Digital Impact Lab, said that no other shutdown has been implemented across such a large country, for such a length of time, and been so effective in preventing the dissemination of information.

“In Kashmir, Iraq or Sudan, you could still find journalists. They could

‘In Kashmir, Iraq or Sudan, you could still find journalists reporting back. For Iran, it wasn’t the case’

report back, for instance from the BBC. For Iran, it wasn’t the case,” he said.

On Iranian state TV, officials alleged that foreign conspiracies and exile groups instigated the unrest.

A spokesman for the Revolutionary Guards Corps, responsible for national security, said that several leaders of the unrest with dual citizenship and ties to foreign powers had been arrested.

Amnesty International last week said at least 200 have been killed, but Iran analysts said that with access to the country limited, that number was likely to be conservative.