Anger has continued to mount in Iran for nearly a week, as has the human toll: seven demonstrators and four members of the security forces have been killed since protests began to protest the death of Mahsa Amini, according to a latest report official released Thursday, September 22.

Three paramilitaries "mobilized to confront the rioters" in Tabriz (northwest), Qazvin (center) and Mashhad (northeast) were killed on Wednesday with knives or bullets, according to Iranian news agencies.

A member of the security forces was also killed on Tuesday during protests in Shiraz (center), according to the same source. 

Seven demonstrators were also killed, including one with a knife, on Wednesday in Qazvin, according to the Fars agency.

Iranian officials had reported six demonstrators killed on Wednesday, including four in Kurdistan (northwest), where Mahsa Amini is from, and two in Kermanshah (northwest), since the start of the protests.

Iranian officials have denied any involvement by security forces in the deaths of the protesters.

The drastic restrictions of the Iranian authorities on the Internet

Meanwhile, Iranian authorities have imposed drastic restrictions on the internet, including blocking access to Instagram and WhatsApp, local media reported on Thursday.

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"By decision of the authorities, it is no longer possible to access Instagram in Iran since last night (Wednesday) and access to WhatsApp is also disrupted," said the Fars news agency.

Since the blocking of platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Telegram, Twitter and Tiktok in recent years in Iran, Instagram and WhatsApp were the most used applications in Iran.

Access to the Internet, especially to social networks, is also largely filtered or restricted by the authorities: without VPN-type anti-censorship software, most web pages hosted outside the country are inaccessible.

Connections have been slow since the beginning of the demonstrations which broke out after the authorities announced on September 16 the death of Mahsa Amini.

This measure was taken because of "actions carried out by counter-revolutionaries against national security via these social networks", Fars said.

In 2019, during demonstrations triggered by the announcement of a rise in the price of gasoline, a drastic restriction had already been imposed on the Internet to block the sharing by Internet users of videos of the unrest which left many dead.

With AFP

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