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Several people have been killed and dozens arrested after protests in Iran turned violent, according to Iranian media, the first apparent outbreak of fatalities in days of demonstrations over economic distress.
Protesters in the southwestern city of Lordegan chanted slogans and threw stones at government buildings, including the local governor’s office, according to Fars news agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Riot police responded by firing tear gas to disperse the crowd.
Two protesters — aged 28 and 21 — were killed during the confrontation, the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, a Norway-based NGO, said. Tasnim news agency, another affiliate of the guards, also identified the pair killed. An unspecified number of people on both sides were injured, Fars added.
In the town of Azna, in the western province of Lorestan, three people were killed, according to Fars and Hengaw.
Fars said armed assailants raided a police station, set police vehicles on fire and attacked the station’s ammunition storage facility. At least 17 people had been arrested, it added.
West of the capital Tehran, 14 people were arrested in the city of Karaj as members of a “network” that allegedly produced explosives, including Molotov cocktails, local media reported.
Earlier, on Wednesday night, 30 more had been arrested in the nearby town of Malard for “disrupting public order”, according to its deputy governor.
Also on Wednesday night violent confrontations in Koohdasht, Lorestan, left one member of the guards’ Basij volunteer forces dead, according to officials.
The wave of protests has grown into the largest since 2022 when a woman, arrested for allegedly improperly wearing a hijab, died in custody. The latest demonstrations started in Tehran’s business district over the collapse of the currency and have since spread to universities and other cities.
President Masoud Pezeshkian’s government has taken steps to assuage protesters, meeting business leaders over their concerns and appointing a new central bank governor to try to restore “economic stability”.
In public comments on Thursday evening, Pezeshkian said “people’s livelihoods are the government’s red line”, adding that resolving economic concerns was a “non-negotiable” duty of his administration, without making any reference to the protests.
Iran has a history of cracking down on demonstrations, however, with more than 300 people killed during the months-long protests in 2022, according to Amnesty International.
Seven people were detained in Kermanshah city in western Iran for links to opposition groups based abroad, according to Tasnim, and were allegedly planning to turn the protests into “riots and unrest”.
Iran, whose economy is subject to extensive US sanctions, has suffered a dramatic collapse in living standards in recent years.
This has accelerated in the months since a 12-day war with Israel in June, which the US also briefly joined. Iran’s currency, the rial, has since fallen to record lows against the US dollar and annual inflation rose above 40 per cent in December.
Social media footage on Thursday showed shopkeepers at Tehran’s wholesale produce market staging a protest over rising prices. Tehran’s governor said protests by merchants had been “managed” in collaboration with law enforcement forces.
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