Iran is experiencing its deadliest political unrest since the Islamic Revolution 40 years ago, with at least 180 people killed -- and possibly hundreds more -- as angry protests have been smothered in a government crackdown of unbridled force.It began two weeks ago with an abrupt increase of at least
Iran is experiencing its deadliest political unrest since the Islamic Revolution 40 years ago, with at least 180 people killed — and possibly hundreds more — as angry protests have been smothered in a government crackdown of unbridled force.
Altogether, between 180 to 450 people — possibly more — were killed in four days of intense violence after the gasoline price increase was announced Nov. 15, with at least 2,000 wounded and 7,000 detained, according to international rights organizations, opposition groups and local journalists. The gas price increase, which was announced as most Iranians had gone to bed, came as Iran struggles to fill a yawning budget gap. The Trump administration sanctions, most notably their tight restrictions on exports of Iran’s oil, are a big reason for the shortfall. The sanctions are meant to pressure Iran into renegotiating the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and major world powers, which President Donald Trump abandoned, calling it too weak.
In a statement posted Saturday on an opposition website, Mousavi, who has been under house arrest since 2011 and seldom speaks publicly, blamed the supreme leader for the killings. He compared them to an infamous 1978 massacre by government forces that led to the downfall of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi a year later at the hands of Islamic revolutionaries who now rule the country.
The worst violence documented so far happened in the city of Mahshahr and its suburbs, with a population of 120,000 people in Iran’s southwest Khuzestan province — a region with an ethnic Arab majority that has a long history of unrest and opposition to the central government. Mahshahr is adjacent to the nation’s largest industrial petrochemical complex and serves as a gateway to Bandar Imam, a major port.
Local security forces and riot police officers had attempted to disperse the crowd and open the roads but failed, residents said. Several clashes between protesters and security forces erupted between Saturday evening and Monday morning before Guard members were dispatched there. One of the residents, a 24-year-old unemployed college graduate in chemistry who had helped organize the protests blocking the roads, said he had been less than 1 mile away from the mass shooting and that his best friend, also 24, and a 32-year-old cousin were among the dead.
A 32-year-old nurse in Mahshahr reached by phone said she had tended to the wounded at the hospital and that most had sustained gunshot wounds to the head and chest. “What have you done that the undignified Shah did not do?” Golmordai screamed from the parliament floor as a scuffle broke out between him and other lawmakers, including one who grabbed him by the throat.
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