Iranian man describes surviving deadly protest crackdown
CBSN
After mass protests in Iran erupted in December and continued to escalate into the new year, the government shut down internet access throughout the country. But after weeks of trying, one man in Iran was able to get through the blackout and speak with CBS News on a video call, describing what sounds like a massacre of anti-government protesters in early January. In:
After mass protests in Iran erupted in December and continued to escalate into the new year, the government shut down internet access throughout the country. But after weeks of trying, one man in Iran was able to get through the blackout and speak with CBS News on a video call, describing what sounds like a massacre of anti-government protesters in early January.
Jan. 8 and 9 are believed to be the bloodiest, most brutal days in the government's crackdown on protesters since it was founded in 1979.
The man asked not to be identified and had his head wrapped in a black cloth and his eyes covered by goggles because he is afraid the government could find him and put him in prison or execute him. He described a crackdown on Jan. 9 in the city of Yazd, about 400 miles southeast of the capital Tehran.
He was in a crowd of about 1,500 people marching toward Imam Hossein Square when, he said, government forces started shooting at them from the front and the back in what he thinks was a plan to mow them down from both sides.
Two sources, including one inside Iran, previously told CBS News that at least 12,000, and possibly as many as 20,000 people have been killed throughout Iran in the protests.
