Dubai | Violence surrounding the nationwide protests now shaking Iran has killed at least 203 people, with fears the death toll is actually far higher, activists warned Sunday.
With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. But the death toll in the protests has jumped drastically, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.
Of those killed 162 are protesters and 41 are members of the security forces, it said.
The group, which relies on activists in Iran crosschecking information, has offered accurate tolls in previous rounds of unrest in the Islamic Republic. The Iranian government has not offered any overall casualty figures for the demonstrations.
The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the toll, given the internet and international phone calls now being blocked in Iran.
More demonstrations planned Sunday
Iran's theocracy cut off the nation from the internet and international telephone calls on Thursday, though it allowed some state-owned and semiofficial media to publish. Qatar's state-funded Al Jazeera news network reported live from Iran, but they appeared to be the only major foreign outlet able to work.
Iran's exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who called for protests Thursday and Friday, asked in his latest message for demonstrators to take to the streets Saturday and Sunday. He urged protesters to carry Iran's old lion-and-sun flag and other national symbols used during the time of the shah to “claim public spaces as your own.”
Pahlavi's support of and from Israel has drawn criticism in the past — particularly after the 12-day war. Demonstrators have shouted in support of the shah in some protests, but it isn't clear whether that's support for Pahlavi himself or a desire to return to a time before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The demonstrations began December 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to USD 1, as the country's economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran's theocracy.
