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With one human rights group reporting that the number of people confirmed killed has passed 6,000, several young Iranians able speak to the BBC in recent days - despite a near-total internet shutdown - have described the personal toll.
Parisa [a 29-year-old woman from Teheran] said one 26-year-old woman she knew was killed by “a hail of bullets in the street” when the protests escalated across the country on Thursday, 8 January, and Friday, 9 January, and authorities responded with lethal force to crush them.
She herself took part in protests in the north of Tehran that Thursday, which she insisted were peaceful.
“No-one was violent and no-one clashed with the security forces. But on Friday night they still opened fire on the crowd,” she said.
“The smell of gunpowder and bullets filled the neighbourhoods where clashes were taking place.”
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“Despite the killings on Thursday [8 January] and threats of more killings on Friday, people came out, because many of them could no longer endure it and had nothing left to lose,” [Mehdi, 24, another Iranian protester] added.
Mehdi described witnessing multiple killings of protesters at close range by security forces.
“I saw a young man killed right in front of my eyes with two live rounds,” he said.
“Motorcyclists shot a young man in the face with a shotgun. He fell on the spot and never got back up.”
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Human Rights Activists News Agency (Hrana) says it has so far confirmed the killing of at least 6,159 people since the unrest began, including 5,804 protesters, 92 children and 214 people affiliated with the government. It is also investigating 17,000 more reported deaths.
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Not wishing to diminish the severity of the situation in Iran, but it’s worth nothing that these numbers come from HRANA, a US government backed NGO, and the organization has been very cagey about its sources and how it verifies its death toll figures.
There are also those within Iran who are accusing US/Israel funded agitators of being largely behind the escalation in violence. Both nations would clearly benefit from regime change, and this wouldn’t be the first time this type of operation has been carried out by US/Israeli agents.
With the information blackout, it’s ultimately very difficult to verify either way.
I’m not sure Israel benefits from regime change, Iran does a lot of sabre rattling but if the regime was replaced by a democracy, Iran would likely be more aggressive to Israel not less.
I’m not sure how you’ve come to that conclusion. Aside from Iran’s nuclear development ambitions, which is seen as an existential threat by Israel, Iran has been directly bankrolling both Hamas and Hezbollah for decades.
If the regime were toppled and replaced by a moderate government more open to negotiating with the US/Israel (which would almost certainly be the case, since US/Israel would be the ones picking who ran the new regime), that would be an enormous geopolitical win for Washington.
Iran’s nuclear development ambitions are about as real as Iraq’s WMDs it’s a nice myth that benefits both Israel and Iran’s regime, but that’s about it.
Hamas gets more money from Qatar than Iran, and a Democratic Iranian regime would be likely to keep that funding going, funding Hamas is a popular in the Middle East for a variety of reasons.
So not a democracy then? Sure Israel would benefit from a puppet state, but how did that work out last time?
I’m sorry, but are you new here?
Surely I don’t have to explain to you how a regime change orchestrated by the US/Israel would necessarily result in a puppet state.
It’s a pretty big assumption that any regime change in Iran would be orchestrated by the US/Israel, what if I told you Iranians are actually individuals not controlled by their regime or the one in Washington, and can make their own decisions?
Perhaps we are talking at cross purposes.
I thought it was pretty clear that we were discussing what would happen if the US/Israel overthrew the regime like they did in 1953 and install a modern-day equivalent of the Shah. I wasn’t talking about an actual, grassroots revolution.