Two protestors killed in Iran rallies as messaging app blocked
● Largest protests in Iran since 2009 ● Economic issues underpin unrest
Two protesters taking part in demonstrations across Iran were killed at a rally, in the first deaths attributed to ongoing protests sparked by the government blocking access to a popular messaging app.
The demonstrations – which started on Thursday over the economic woes plaguing Iran – appear to be the largest to strike the Islamic Republic since the country’s disputed 2009 presidential election.
They were fanned in part by messages sent on the Telegram messaging app, which authorities blocked yesterday along with Instagram.
Protesters gathered for an unauthorised rally that lasted into the night on Saturday in Doroud – a city about 200 miles south-west of Tehran in Iran’s Lorestan province.
Habibollah Khojastepour, the security deputy of Lorestan’s governor, said the two protesters were killed in clashes at the rally.
“The gathering was to be ended peacefully, but due to the presence of the [activists], unfortunately this happened,” Mr Khojastepour said.
He did not offer a cause of death for the two protesters, but said “no bullets were shot from police and security forces at the people”.
Videos circulating on social media late on Saturday appeared to show fallen protesters in Doroud as gunshots sounded in the background.
Thousands of people have taken to the streets of cities across Iran starting on Thursday in Mashhad – the country’s second-largest city and a holy site for Shiite pilgrims.
The protests in the Iranian capital, as well as US president Donald Trump tweeting about them, raised the stakes. It also apparently forced state television to break its silence on Saturday, with the outlet acknowledging it hadn’t reported on the protests on orders from security officials.
At least 50 protesters have been arrested since Thursday. State TV said some protesters chanted the name of the Us-backed Shah, who fled into exile just before Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution and later died.
The semi-official ILNA news agency yesterday reported that authorities had arrested some 80 protesters in the city of Arak, about 170 miles south of Tehran.
Many in Iran are learning about the protests and sharing images of them through Telchannels,” egram, a mobile phone messaging app popular among the country’s 80 million people. Telegram shut down one channel on the service on Saturday over Iranian allegations it encouraged violence, something its moderator denied.
Yesterday Telegram chief executive Pavel Durov wrote on Twitter that authorities had blocked access to the app.
“Iranian authorities are blocking access to Telegram for the majority of Iranians after our public refusal to shut down … peacefully protesting he wrote. Iran’s state TV news website quoted an anonymous source saying that social media in Iran would be temporarily limited as a safety measure.
“With a decision by the Supreme National Security Council, activities of Telegram and Instagram are temporarily limited,” the report said. Iran’s economy has improved since its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. That deal involved Iran limiting its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the end of some international sanctions.
Tehran now sells its oil on the global market and has signed deals to purchase tens of billions of dollars’ worth of western aircraft.
However, that improvement has not reached the average Iranian. Unemployment remains high, and official inflation has crept up to 10 per cent again. A recent increase in egg and poultry prices by as much as 40 per cent, which a government spokesman has blamed on a cull over avian flu fears, appears to have been the spark for the economic protests.