Iran protesters defy crackdown as videos show violent clashes

Protesters in Iran defied a deadly government crackdown on Saturday night, taking to the streets despite reports suggesting hundreds of people have been killed or wounded by security forces in the past three days.

Verified videos and eyewitness accounts seen by the BBC appeared to show the government was ramping up its response, as it continues an overarching internet blackout.

The country’s attorney general, Mohammad Movahedi Azad, said on Saturday that anyone protesting would be considered an “enemy of God” – an offence that carries the death penalty.

Hundreds of protesters are believed to have been killed or injured since protests began more than two weeks ago, and many more detained.

The protests were sparked by soaring inflation, and have spread to more than 100 cities and towns across every province in Iran. Now protesters are calling for an end to the clerical rulership of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Khamenei has dismissed demonstrators as a “bunch of vandals” seeking to “please” US President Donald Trump.

The Iranian government has imposed the internet shutdown in an effort to stop the protests. Iran’s data infrastructure is tightly controlled by the state and security authorities. Internet access is largely limited to a domestic intranet, with restricted links to the outside world.

Over the past few years, the government has progressively curtailed access to the global internet. However, during the current round of protests, authorities have, for the first time, not only shut down access to the worldwide internet but also severely restricted the domestic intranet.

An expert told BBC Persian that the current shutdown is more severe than that imposed during the “Women, Life, Freedom” uprising three years ago. Alireza Manafi, an internet researcher, said internet access in Iran, in any form, was now “almost completely down”.

He added the only likely way to connect to the outside world was via Starlink, but warned users to exercise caution, as such connections could potentially be traced by the government.

The BBC and most other international news organisations are also unable to report from inside Iran, making obtaining and verifying information difficult.

Nonetheless, some video footage has emerged, and the BBC has spoken to people on the ground.

Verified video from Saturday night showed protesters taking over the streets in Tehran’s Gisha district. Several videos, verified and confirmed as recent by BBC Verify, show clashes between protesters and security forces on Vakil Abad Boulevard in Mashhad, Iran’s second largest city.

Masked protesters are seen taking cover behind wheelie bins and bonfires, while a row of security forces is seen in the distance. A vehicle that appears to be a bus is engulfed in flames.

Multiple gunshots and what sounds like banging on pots and pans can be heard as a green laser beam lights up the scene.

A figure standing on a nearby footbridge is visible in the footage and appears to fire multiple gunshots in several directions as a couple of people take cover behind a fence on the side of the boulevard.

A few videos have also emerged from the capital Tehran. One video, authenticated by BBC Verify, shows a large group of protesters and the sound of banging on pots in Punak Square in west Tehran, which has been one of the hotspots of protests this week.

Another clip, filmed in the Heravi district in north-east Tehran and confirmed by BBC Persian and BBC Verify, shows a crowd of protesters marching on a road and calling for the end of the clerical establishment.

On Saturday, Trump wrote on social media: “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!”

He did not elaborate, but US media reported that Trump had been briefed on options for military strikes in the country. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that the briefings had taken place, with the Journal describing them as “preliminary discussions”. An unnamed official told the WSJ there was no “imminent threat” to Iran, the paper wrote.

Last year, the US conducted airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

US Senator Lindsey Graham posted several times in support of the protests on social media, writing: “To the Iranian people: your long nightmare is soon coming to a close.”

Their “bravery and determination to end your oppression” had been “noticed” by the US president, he said. “Help is on the way,” he added in the same post.

Earlier, he said: “To the regime leadership: your brutality against the great people of Iran will not go unchallenged.”

As dawn broke on Sunday in Iran, Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah (king), whose return protesters have been calling for, posted a video to X.

Its caption said: “Know that you are not alone. Your compatriots around the world are proudly shouting your voice… In particular, President Trump, as the leader of the free world, has carefully observed your indescribable bravery and has announced that he is ready to help you.”

He added: “I know that I will soon be by your side.”

US-based Pahlavi has been calling for people to take to the streets, and has said he is preparing to return to the country.

He claimed the Islamic republic was facing a “severe shortage of mercenaries” and that “many armed and security forces have left their workplaces or disobeyed orders to suppress the people”. The BBC could not verify these claims.

Pahlavi encouraged people to continue protesting on Sunday evening, but to stay in groups or with crowds and not “endanger your lives”.

Amnesty International said it was analysing “distressing reports that security forces had intensified their unlawful use of lethal force against protesters” since Thursday.

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said those speaking out against Khamenei’s government should not face “the threat of violence or reprisals”.

Since Friday night, staff at three hospitals have told the BBC they had been overwhelmed with casualties. The BBC Persian service has verified that 70 bodies were brought to just one hospital in Rasht city on Friday night.

BBC Persian has confirmed the identities of 26 people killed, including six children. Members of the security forces have also been killed, with one human rights group putting the number at 14.

A hospital worker in Tehran described “very horrible scenes”, saying there were so many wounded that staff did not have time to perform CPR, and that morgues did not have enough room to store the bodies of those who had died.

“Around 38 people died. Many as soon as they reached the emergency beds… direct shots to the heads of the young people, to their hearts as well. Many of them didn’t even make it to the hospital.”

The hospital worker said the dead or wounded were young people. “Couldn’t look at many of them, they were 20-25 years old.”

The protests have been the most widespread since an uprising in 2022 sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman who was detained by morality police for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly.

More than 550 people were killed and 20,000 detained by security forces over several months, according to human rights groups.

Additional reporting by Soroush Pakzad and Roja Assadi