This archive report was first published on 2 December 2019.
Iran has been gripped by its worst unrest in 40 years, with protests spreading across the country and a brutal crackdown by the authorities.
According to the interior minister, Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, widespread unrest has been reported in 29 out of 31 provinces, with 50 military bases attacked. The property damage is extensive, with 731 banks, 140 public spaces, nine religious centers, 70 gasoline stations, 307 vehicles, 183 police cars, 1,076 motorcycles, and 34 ambulances targeted.
The worst violence has been documented in the city of Mahshahr and its suburbs, a region with an ethnic Arab majority that has a long history of unrest and opposition to the central government. The city is home to a population of 120,000 people and serves as a gateway to Bandar Imam, a major port.
Residents of Mahshahr, including a protest leader and a nurse at the hospital where casualties were treated, have provided similar accounts of how the Revolutionary Guards deployed a large force to crush the protests on November 18, 2019. They spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution by the Guards.
For three days, protesters had successfully gained control of most of Mahshahr and its suburbs, blocking the main road to the city and the adjacent industrial petrochemical complex. Iran's interior minister confirmed that the protesters had gotten control over Mahshahr and its roads in a televised interview last week, but the Iranian government did not respond to specific questions about the mass killings in the city.
