Death toll in Iran protests reaches at least 116, activists say

DUBAI — 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, 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 while more that 2,600 people have been detained, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. The agency has been accurate in such counts in previous rounds of unrest in Iran.

Iranian state TV is reporting on security force casualties while portraying control over the nation, without discussing dead demonstrators, whom it refers to as “terrorists.” However, it 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 signaled a coming clampdown, despite U.S. warnings. Tehran escalated its threats Saturday, with 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.”

President 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, citing anonymous U.S. officials, said Saturday night that Trump had been given military options for a strike on Iran, but hadn’t made a final decision.

The State Department warned: “Do not play games with President Trump. When he says he’ll do something, he means it.”

State TV split-screen highlights Iran’s challenge

Saturday marked the start of the workweek 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, honors 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.

It also repeatedly aired video of purported protesters shooting at security forces.

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 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and one of the few media outlets able to publish to the outside world, released surveillance video 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 Revolutionary Guard’s 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, reported that 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 video of a funeral service attended by hundreds in Qom, a Shiite seminary city just south of Tehran.

More weekend demonstrations planned

Iran’s theocracy cut off the nation from the internet and international telephone calls 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 it 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, in his latest message urged demonstrators to take to the streets Saturday and Sunday. Pahlavi, the eldest son of the late Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, exhorted protesters to carry Iran’s old lion-and-sun flag and other national symbols used during the time of his father’s rule to “claim public spaces as your own.”

Pahlavi’s support of and from Israel has drawn criticism in the past — particularly after last year’s 12-day Israel-Iran 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 appeared to show protests ongoing Saturday night.

The demonstrations began Dec. 28 over the collapse of the Iranian currency, the rial, which trades at more than 1.4 million to $1, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran’s theocracy.

Airlines have canceled some flights into Iran over the unrest. Austrian Airlines said Saturday it had suspended 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 embark on a bloody crackdown, as they have in other rounds of antigovernment demonstrations. Ali Rahmani, the son of imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, 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.

Gambrell writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Oleg Cetinic in Paris and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed to this report.