TEHRAN, Iran — Two protesters taking part in demonstrations roiling Iran were killed at a rally overnight, a semi-official news agency reported Sunday, the first deaths attributed to the ongoing protests.
The demonstrations, which began Thursday over the economic woes plaguing Iran, appear to be the largest to strike the Islamic Republic since the protests that followed the country’s disputed 2009 presidential election.
Meanwhile, the CEO of messaging app Telegram says Iran is “blocking access … for the majority of Iranians” after protesters used the popular app to plan and publicize demonstrations.
CEO Pavel Durov made the announcement on Twitter Sunday. Iranians said the app is now inaccessible by mobile phone networks. Users said Sunday that they could no longer access the app via cellphone networks, though it was still available via wifi and home internet connections.
An Iranian woman raises her fist amid the smoke of tear gas at the University of Tehran during a protest driven by anger over economic problems, in the capital Tehran on December 30, 2017.
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In Doroud, a city some 200 miles southwest of Tehran, in Iran’s western Lorestan province, protesters gathered for an unauthorized rally that lasted into the night Saturday, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.
Mehr quoted Habibollah Khojastepour, the security deputy of Lorestan’s governor, as saying the illegal gathering ignited clashes. The two protesters were killed in the clashes, he said.
“The gathering was to be ended peacefully, but due to the presence of the (agitators), unfortunately, this happened,” Khojastepour was quoted as saying.
Khojastepour did not offer a cause of death for the two protesters, but said “no bullets were shot from police and security forces at the people.”
Iranian officials blamed the deaths on Sunni extremists and foreign powers, BBC News reports.
Videos circulating on social media late Saturday appeared to show fallen protesters in Doroud as gunshots sounded in the background. The Associated Press could not immediately verify the footage.
Thousands have taken to the streets of cities across Iran, beginning on Thursday in Mashhad, the country’s second-largest city and a holy site for Shiite pilgrims.
Iranian students scuffle with police at the University of Tehran during a demonstration driven by anger over economic problems, in the capital Tehran on Dec. 30, 2017.
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The protests in the Iranian capital, as well as President Trump tweeting about them, raised the stakes. It also apparently forced state television to break its silence on Saturday, acknowledging it hadn’t reported on the protests on orders from security officials.
At least 50 protesters have been arrested since Thursday, authorities said Saturday. State TV said some protesters chanted the name of the U.S.-backed shah, who fled into exile just before Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution and later died.
On Sunday, the semi-official ILNA news agency reported that authorities have arrested some 80 protesters in the city of Arak, some 173 miles south of Tehran.
Iran’s economy has improved since its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which saw Iran limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the end of some international sanctions. Tehran now sells its oil on the global market and has signed deals to purchase tens of billions of dollars’ worth of Western aircraft.
That improvement has not reached the average Iranian, however. Unemployment remains high, and official inflation has crept up to 10 percent again. A recent increase in egg and poultry prices by as much as 40 percent, which a government spokesman has blamed on a cull over avian flu fears, appears to have been the spark for the economic protests.
While the protests have sparked clashes, Iran’s hard-line paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and its affiliates have not intervened as they have in other unauthorized demonstrations since the 2009 election.
Some analysts outside of Iran have suggested that may be because the economic protests initially just put pressure on the administration of President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate whose administration struck the nuclear deal.
