PARIS – At least four people were killed in western Iran on Saturday in clashes between protesters and security forces, two rights groups said, accusing Revolutionary Guards of opening fire on demonstrators.
Protests carried on in several cities nationwide throughout Saturday, the seventh day of a movement sparked by anger over the rising cost of living in the Islamic republic.
The protests are the most significant in Iran since a 2022-2023 movement that authorities quelled with a crackdown that left hundreds dead and thousands arrested, according to activists.
The Norway-based Hengaw rights group said that Revolutionary Guards used live fire against protesters in the Malekshahi district of the western Ilam province, killing four members of Iran’s Kurdish minority.
The group said it was checking reports that two other people had been killed, while it said dozens more were wounded.
The Iran Human Rights NGO, also based in Norway, said at least four people were killed and 30 wounded after “security forces attacked the protests” in Malekshahi.
It posted footage of what appeared to be bloodied corpses on the ground. It was not possible to immediately verify the footage or the toll.
In Iran, media evoked the clashes with the Mehr news agency saying a Revolutionary Guard was killed after “rioters” attempted to enter a police station.
The protests have affected, to varying degrees, at least 30 different cities, mostly medium-sized, according to an AFP tally based on official announcements and media reports.
At least 12 people have been killed since Wednesday in clashes, including members of the security forces, according to a toll based on official reports.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency monitor said that over the past seven days, protests have been recorded at least 174 locations in 60 cities across 25 of Iran’s 31 provinces.
During this period, at least 582 individuals were arrested, and at least 15 protesters have been killed, it said.
It was not immediately possible to verify the figures.
The protests began last week following a shutdown by merchants in the Tehran bazaar, an influential economic hub, and spread to other regions as well as universities.
The UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Mai Sato said Friday that “reports indicate growing confrontation between protesters and security forces” and warned the violent response witnessed during the 2022-2023 movement “must not be repeated.”
The protests began on Sunday in Tehran, where some shopkeepers went on strike over high prices and economic stagnation.
Iran’s economy has been battered by years of crushing international sanctions over its nuclear program, with raging inflation and a collapsing currency.
By Tuesday, student protests erupted at universities in the capital Tehran and the central cities of Isfahan and Yazd. Some merchants in the capital’s bazaar joined in.
Demonstrations have now affected 20 areas, mostly towns in the west of the country, according to an AFP tally of official and local Iranian media reports.
In the southern city of Fasa, dozens of people protested outside a government building, lobbing projectiles and seeking to tear down its gate, according to videos posted on Wednesday, whose location AFP verified.
Slogans heard at protests now include “Death to the dictator” and “Woman, Life, Freedom”, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency says, citing verified videos and reports. AFP was not immediately able to authenticate these soundbites.
The same chants were used in mass demonstrations after the September 2022 death in custody of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian-Kurdish woman arrested for allegedly breaching the country’s dress code for women.
But authorities stamped out the 2022-2023 protests, using mass arrests and executions as part of its levers of repression, rights activists say. The system in charge since the 1979 revolution stayed in place.
“The protesters are very clear in their slogans — they are not looking for reform,” said US-Iranian human rights lawyer Gissou Nia, of the Atlantic Council.
They come as “the Islamic republic is dealing with a range of pressures, not only internally but also externally,” she said.
Regional arch-foe Israel and the United States in June pounded Iranian nuclear sites and killed top military brass during a 12-day war.
On Monday, US President Donald Trump told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Florida that if Tehran rebuilt its nuclear facilities, the United States would “knock them down.”
Trump said on Friday the United States was “locked and loaded” to respond if Iran killed protesters.
Iran has also been weakened following major blows dealt to its regional allies, including in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria.
Some Iranians hold long-standing resentment that Tehran has given too much financial or military support to its regional proxies, such as Lebanese movement Hezbollah, during economic hardship at home.
Iran International, a television channel based outside Iran that is critical of the authorities, has reported that recent protest slogans included “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon, my life for Iran.”
