Iran's new wave of protests prompts hospital raids, internet access cut
At least 36 protestors have been killed in Iran and over 2,000 others have been detained by regime forces as widespread demonstrations continue for the twelfth day in a row, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.
Iranians in over 100 cities and towns across the country have taken to the streets, shouting slogans against the regime and demanding greater rights in the largest protests challenging the regime since the "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement in 2022 and 2023, sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.
Demonstrators have been calling for the Iranian regime's downfall and systemic change as a first step to reclaiming freedom and dignity.
Escalating the current protests is a call from Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, the exiled, U.S.-based son of the former shah of Iran, himself deposed and exiled during the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution, to "start chanting slogans" Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m. local time.
"Based on your response, I will announce the next calls to action," Pahlavi said.
As protestors answered Pahlavi's call Thursday night, internet and telephone access across Iran was cut, according to the Associated Press.
Galloping inflation appeared to be the initial trigger of this round of protests in Tehran that started on Dec. 28. However, the focus soon expanded beyond economic grievances, with protestors employing slogans like "death to dictator" and "death to Khamenei," referring to Seyyed Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran's Islamic Republic regime.
Groups of protestors made up of university students, women and ethnic minorities, including people from Kurdish and Turkish ethnicities, have gradually joined the protests from across the country since then.
Most Iranians struggle to keep up with the constantly rising prices in the country due to the rapid fall of the rial, which declined in value from 34,000 rials against the U.S. dollar in July 2016 to 165,000 rials against the dollar in May 2020. Its value has plummeted more than 800% since then and stands around 1,500,000 rials against the dollar as of this week.
The Islamic Republic security forces raided a hospital in Ilam, a western city of the country and one of the epicenters of protests, according to HRANA. Several of the people injured in protests had been taken to the hospital, according to the agency.
An eyewitness who was in the Ilam hospital during the raid told ABC News that he saw security forces taking away at least one of the injured protestors. He added that security forces also wanted to remove the bodies of victims who were killed in the protests, which had been taken to the hospital.
Amnesty Iran, the Iranian arm of Amnesty International, condemned the attack on the hospital and said the regime must “immediately stop the use of unlawful force against protesters."
The U.S. State Department also criticized the hospital attack, posting on X that "the brutal attack by the Islamic Republic regime on a hospital in Ilam is a crime."
"The raid on wards, the beating of medical staff, and the assault on the injured with tear gas and live ammunition is a blatant crime against humanity. Hospitals are not battlefields,” the post further said.
In an attempt to appease the protestors, the Iranian Minister of Labor and Social Welfare announced that all Iranian residents inside the country will receive a cash handout of 10 million rials, which is just under $7 U.S. dollars at current exchange rates. Iranians were told that they can use the allowance to purchase basic food items -- a declaration that was widely mocked by protestors.
