Iran unrest widens as government shuts off internet, protesters start fires

Iran was largely cut off from the outside world on Friday after authorities blacked out the internet to curb growing unrest, as video showed buildings and vehicles ablaze in anti-government protests raging through the streets of several cities. In a televised address, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed not to back down, accusing demonstrators of acting on behalf of...

Iran was largely cut off from the outside world on Friday after authorities blacked out the internet to curb growing unrest, as video showed buildings and vehicles ablaze in anti-government protests raging through the streets of several cities.

In a televised address, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed not to back down, accusing demonstrators of acting on behalf of émigré opposition groups and the United States, as rights groups reported police firing on protesters in the south.

The unrest has not mobilized as many layers of society as other bouts of political, economic or human rights protest in the past decade and a half, but dozens are reported dead and the authorities look more vulnerable because of a dire economic situation and the aftermath of last year’s war with Israel and the United States.

While the initial protests were focused on the economy, with the rial currency losing half its value against the dollar last year and inflation topping 40 per cent in December, they have morphed to include slogans aimed directly at the authorities.

The internet blackout has sharply reduced the amount of information getting out. Phone calls into Iran were not getting through. At least 17 flights between Dubai and Iran were canceled, Dubai Airport’s website showed.

Protests began late last month with shopkeepers and bazaar merchants demonstrating over inflation and the rial, but soon spread to universities and provincial cities, young men clashing with security forces.

Images published by state television overnight showed what it said were burning buses, cars and motorbikes as well as fires at underground railway stations and banks. It blamed the unrest on the People’s Mujahedin Organisation, an opposition faction headquartered abroad that splintered off after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and is also known as the MKO.

A state TV journalist standing in front of fires on Shariati Street in the Caspian Sea port of Rasht said: “This looks like a war zone – all the shops have been destroyed.”