Iran curbs internet access as growing protests claim 11 lives
TEHRAN: Iran has restricted internet access after days of protests that have claimed at least 11 lives, following the death of a young woman in the custody of the morality police.
According to the details, three security officers were stabbed or shot dead after they had been “mobilised to deal with rioters”, in Mashhad in the northeast, Qazvin in the centre and Tabriz in the northwest.
A fourth member of the security forces was killed in the southern city of Shiraz, they said, adding that a protester had also been stabbed to death in Qazvin.
Iranian officials had previously confirmed the deaths of six demonstrators.
Four died in Kurdistan, the home province of Mahsa Amini, the young woman whose death last week triggered the protests, and two in Kermanshah, another province with a large Kurdish community.
The Iranian authorities have denied any involvement in the deaths of protesters.
Meanwhile, Iran blocked access to Instagram and WhatsApp and imposed drastic restrictions on internet access.
“In accordance with a decision by officials, it has no longer been possible to access Instagram in Iran since yesterday (Wednesday) evening and access to WhatsApp is also disrupted,” the semi-official Fars news agency reported.
The two apps were the most widely used in Iran after the blocking of other platforms in recent years, including Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, YouTube and Tiktok.
