Iran Rounds Up Thousands In Mass Arrest Campaign After Crushing Unrest: Reuters
Clerical rulers are under rising pressure as Trump threatens strikes to inspire protesters once more.
Plainclothes Iranian security forces have rounded up thousands of people in a campaign of mass arrests and intimidation to deter further protests after crushing the bloodiest unrest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, sources said.
Modest protests that began last month in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar over economic hardship unleashed long-suppressed wider grievances and swiftly escalated into the gravest existential threat to Iran’s Shiite theocracy in nearly five decades, with protesters commonly calling for ruling clerics to step down.
Authorities cut internet access and stifled the unrest with overwhelming force that killed thousands, according to rights groups. Tehran blames “armed terrorists” linked to Israel and the United States for the violence.
Within days, plainclothes security forces launched a campaign of widespread arrests accompanied by an intensified street presence based around checkpoints, according to five activists who spoke on condition of anonymity from inside Iran.
They said detainees had been placed in secret lockups.
“They are arresting everyone,” one of the activists said. “No one knows where they are being taken or where they are being held. With these arrests and threats, they are trying to inject fear into society.”
Similar accounts were given to Reuters by lawyers, medics, witnesses and two Iranian officials speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid retribution by security services.
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They said the roundups appeared aimed at preventing any serious revival of protests by spreading fear just as the clerical establishment faces rising external pressure.
Uncertainty over the possibility of military action against the Islamic Republic has lingered since U.S. President Donald Trump said last week that an “armada” was heading toward the country but that he hoped he would not have to use it.
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