Plainclothes Iranian security forces arrested thousands of people in a campaign of mass detentions and intimidation to prevent new protests after suppressing the bloodiest wave of unrest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, sources interviewed by Reuters said.
Beginning last month in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, modest protests over economic hardship have triggered long-suppressed broader grievances and quickly escalated into the gravest existential threat to Iran’s Shiite theocracy in nearly five decades, with protesters calling for the resignation of ruling clerics.
Authorities cut off internet access and suppressed the unrest with overwhelming force, killing thousands of people, according to rights groups. Tehran blames ‘armed terrorists’ linked to Israel and the United States for the violence.
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Within days, plainclothes security forces launched a campaign of mass arrests, accompanied by an intensified street presence at checkpoints, according to five activists who spoke on condition of anonymity from inside Iran.
According to them, the detainees were placed in secret cells.
‘They are arresting everyone,’ said one of the activists.
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‘No one knows where they are being taken or where they are being kept. With these arrests and threats, they are trying to instill fear in society.’
Similar accounts were given to Reuters by Iranian lawyers, doctors, witnesses and two officials on condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation by the security services.
They say the arrests appear aimed at preventing any serious resumption of protests by spreading fear, just as the clerical establishment faces growing international pressure.
Uncertainty over the possibility of military action against the Islamic Republic has persisted since US President Donald Trump said last week that an ‘armada’ was heading towards the country, but hoped not to have to use it.
On Wednesday, however, he doubled down on his threats by demanding that Iran negotiate restrictions on its nuclear program, warning that any future US attack would be ‘much worse’ than last June’s bombings of three nuclear facilities.
Several Western and Middle Eastern sources told Reuters this week that Trump is weighing options against Iran, including targeted strikes on security forces and leaders to inspire protesters, although Israeli and Arab officials have said air power alone is unlikely to topple the clerical establishment.
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One of the activists said that security forces are detaining not only people accused of involvement in the latest riots, but also those arrested during protests in previous years, ‘even if they did not participate this time, as well as members of their families’.
The latest death toll compiled by the human rights group HRANA, based in the United States, reaches 6,373 — 5,993 of which were protesters, 214 members of the security forces, 113 children under 18 years of age and 53 passersby. The number of prisoners is 42,486, according to HRANA.
Judicial authorities have warned that ‘those who commit sabotage, burn public property and engage in armed clashes with security forces’ could face death sentences.
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The UN human rights office told Reuters on Thursday that it assessed the number of detainees as very high and that there was a risk of torture and unfair trials. Mai Soto, UN special rapporteur for Iran, said that among the thousands of detainees there are doctors and health professionals.
Two Iranian officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed to Reuters that thousands of arrests had been made in recent days.
They said many detainees were being held in unofficial detention facilities, ‘including warehouses and other makeshift locations,’ and that the judiciary moved quickly to process cases.
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Iranian officials have declined to publicly comment on the number of arrests or say where detainees are held.
Amnesty International reported on January 23 that ‘mass arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, bans on gatherings and attacks to silence victims’ families mark the suffocating militarization imposed on Iran by Islamic Republic authorities following massacres during protests’.
