Iran accused of 'deliberately' hiding protest death toll

BEIRUT - Human Rights Watch on Wednesday accused the Iranian government of "deliberately covering up" deaths and arrests during a crackdown on demonstrations across the country earlier this month.

Protests broke out across sanction-hit Iran on November 15, hours after a shock announcement of fuel price rise of up to 200 percent.

Reports of deaths and arrests emerged as security forces were deployed to rein in demonstrations, which turned violent in some areas, with dozens of banks, petrol pumps and police stations torched.

The extent of the crackdown is unclear, however, primarily due to an internet outage imposed during the unrest in a step seen as aimed at curbing the spread of videos of the violence.

HRW said the authorities were "deliberately covering up the scale of the mass crackdown against protesters" and called on them to "immediately announce the number of deaths, arrests, and detentions... and permit an independent inquiry into alleged abuses".

Its deputy Middle East director, Michael Page, censured Iran for having so far "refused to provide an accurate death toll and instead threatened detainees with death".

Rights groups, including Amnesty International, have estimated at least 140 people were killed and up to 7,000 arrested in the protests, HRW said in a statement.

A figure anywhere close to that would make it the deadliest anti-government unrest at least since the authorities put down a "Green Revolution" of election protests in 2009, and probably since the 1979 Islamic Revolution itself.

"Keeping families in the dark about the fate of their loved ones while ratcheting up an atmosphere of fear and retribution is a deliberate government strategy to stifle dissent," Page said.

Internet connectivity has returned to much of the country in recent days, except for on mobile telephone networks, said NetBlocks, a site that monitors internet disruptions.

The United States said Tuesday that it had received thousands of messages from Iran about protests after appealing to demonstrators to defy restrictions on the internet.

"We've received to date nearly 20,000 messages, videos, pictures, notes of the regime's abuses through Telegram messaging services," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters, referring to the encrypted app.

Iranian officials have blamed the violence during demonstrations on the intervention of "thugs" backed by royalists and Iran's arch-enemies - the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia.

"A deep, vast and very dangerous conspiracy that a lot of money had been spent on ... was destroyed by the people," Iran's Supreme Leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a meeting with members of the paramilitary Basij force which took part in the crackdown against protests, according to his official website.

Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said around 731 banks, 70 petrol stations and 140 government sites had been torched. More than 50 bases used by security forces were attacked, he said, in remarks published by the official IRNA news agency.

According to IRNA, Rahmani Fazli said up to 200,000 people took part nationwide in the unrest. Hossein Naqavi-Hosseini, a member of parliament's national security committee, said about 7,000 people had been arrested, news website Entekhab reported.

Long-fraught links between Tehran and Washington plunged to a new low in May last year when the US unilaterally withdrew from an international accord that gave Iran relief from sanctions in return for curbs on its nuclear programme.

The US administration says its aim is to force Tehran to negotiate a more comprehensive nuclear deal. The struggle of ordinary Iranians to make ends meet has become harder since Washington reimposed sanctions.

There has been about a 20 million litre drop in daily fuel consumption since the price hike, Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said, according to the semi-official ISNA news agency. Daily consumption was about 98 million litres before the hike, the state fuel distribution company NIOPDC reported on Tuesday.

Combined with the rising inflation, growing unemployment, a slump in the rial and state corruption, Washington's "maximum pressure" has caused Iran's economy to deteriorate.

The government said the fuel price rises of as much as 50% aim to raise around $2.55 billion a year for extra subsidies to 18 million families struggling on low incomes.