Wednesday night brought the first loss for Iran’s security forces in the unrest, which had started days earlier. The victim was a 21-year-old volunteer with the Basij, the paramilitary force linked to the Revolutionary Guard, and he died at a protest in Kuhdasht, in the west. State news agency IRNA reported the death but gave no detail on how it happened.
The authorities did supply a version. The Student News Network, an outlet thought to have ties to the Basij, quoted Saeed Pourali, deputy governor of Lorestan province, who said the Guard member “was martyred … at the hands of rioters during protests in this city in defense of public order”. He added that 13 more people from the Basij and the police were hurt. DW noted that many people on Iranian social media dispute the official account.
Protests that began with merchants
The unrest started on December 28 when merchants in Tehran stopped work, a protest against a deepening economic crisis and a collapsing currency. It has since reached other cities. By Thursday, AP said, the demonstrations had slowed in the capital but widened into the provinces. AP counted three deaths by then, in two cities where many residents belong to the Lur ethnic group: one on Wednesday, two on Thursday.
The Thursday deaths were in Lordegan, in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province, about 470 kilometers south of Tehran. Fars, a semiofficial agency, quoted an unnamed official who put the toll there at two. A Washington rights group, the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center, also counted two dead and identified them as demonstrators. The Norway-based group Hengaw said security forces had opened fire on the crowds. Videos posted online showed protesters in the street with gunfire audible in the background.
DW added that Fars reported three killed in Azna, in neighboring Lorestan province. Hengaw also said a protester was shot dead in Isfahan province on Wednesday.
Fear of a harder response
The Basij answers to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, and sits alongside the Revolutionary Guard, which reports straight to him. DW reported fears that the 21-year-old’s death could mark the start of a tougher crackdown by the government.
These are the largest protests since 2022, when Mahsa Amini died in police custody, though AP said they have not yet covered the whole country and are less intense than that wave. That earlier wave ended in a crackdown in which hundreds were killed and thousands jailed.
Lordegan has a history of this. In 2019 the area saw widespread protests after a report claimed locals had contracted HIV from contaminated needles at a clinic.
Sources
- Several people killed as protests spread across Iran (DW)
- Blood Runs In Iran's Streets: At Least Three Killed (AP text via Yeshiva World)
