{"id":289524,"date":"2026-01-17T16:49:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T16:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/289524\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T16:49:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T16:49:07","slug":"iranian-leader-acknowledges-thousands-killed-in-anti-government-protests-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/289524\/","title":{"rendered":"Iranian leader acknowledges \u2018thousands\u2019 killed in anti-government protests \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iran<\/a>\u2019s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday said \u201cseveral thousand people\u201d died in this month\u2019s anti-government demonstrations<\/a>, his first acknowledgment of the deadly scale of the unrest.<\/p>\n

Some of those were killed \u201cbrutally and inhumanely,\u201d Khamenei said without offering detail in a public meeting broadcast on state TV. He accused the US<\/a> and Israel of aiding the killings and said the Islamic Republic has evidence to support the claim.<\/p>\n

Iran doesn\u2019t intend to push the country toward war, but won\u2019t allow either domestic or international criminals to go unpunished, he said.<\/p>\n

He said US president Donald Trump<\/a> was culpable for \u201cdeaths, damage and accusations he has inflicted on the Iranian people\u201d, and that Washington\u2019s broader policy goal was to place Iran under military, political and economic domination.<\/p>\n

The toll suggested was in line with estimates from human rights groups and others that about 3,500 people had perished. The groups estimate that more than 22,000 people have been detained.<\/p>\n

The protests have taken place during a record-long internet blackout for Iran\u2019s population of about 92 million people.<\/p>\n

Earlier, local media reported that internet connectivity had been partially restored, even as most residents appeared to remain largely cut off from the outside world for a ninth day.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s government shut down internet and mobile phone services on January 8th to quell rising unrest sparked by a currency crisis late last month.<\/p>\n

\u201cInternet access has now been restored for some subscribers,\u201d the semi-official Mehr news agency said without specifying which restrictions had been lifted or whether users had regained access to international platforms and services.<\/p>\n

The semi-official Fars news agency also reported that mobile text messages had been reactivated after being blocked earlier.<\/p>\n

The internet traffic monitoring group NetBlocks said there had been a \u201cvery slight rise\u201d in connectivity on Saturday, adding that overall access remained at about 2 per cent of normal levels, with \u201cno indication of a significant return.\u201d<\/p>\n

Users in Iran appeared largely offline as of early Saturday afternoon local time, with few signs of activity evident on platforms such as Telegram, Instagram, and X \u2013 services they previously accessed via virtual private networks (VPNs).<\/p>\n

Near\u2011total communications blackouts have become a familiar tool for Islamic Republic authorities during critical situations, from this month\u2019s nationwide protests to the June conflict with Israel. That\u2019s cut off much of the population from the global internet and diverted users onto a government\u2011controlled domestic network that operates independently of the wider web.<\/p>\n

NetBlocks on Friday said the current blackout had surpassed the internet shutdown imposed during the country\u2019s 2019 protests.<\/p>\n

Earlier on Saturday, Fars cited authorities who weren\u2019t identified as saying that internet and other communications services were being gradually restored, but that some restrictions would remain in place \u201cas long as security conditions require.\u201d – Bloomberg<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iran\u2019s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday said \u201cseveral thousand people\u201d died in this month\u2019s anti-government demonstrations,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289525,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,18929,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-289524","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-iran","14":"tag-latest-news","15":"tag-latestnews","16":"tag-main-news","17":"tag-mainnews","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-top-stories","20":"tag-topstories","21":"tag-world","22":"tag-world-news","23":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115911469502172631","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289524\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}