AFP Asia Business

Iranians took to the streets in new protests against the clerical authorities overnight despite an internet shutdown, as rights groups warned on Sunday that authorities were committing a “massacre” to quell the demonstrations.The protests, initially sparked by anger over the rising cost of living, have now become a movement against the theocratic government that has ruled Iran since the 1979 revolution and have already lasted two weeks.The mass rallies are one of the biggest challenges to the rule of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 86, coming in the wake of Israel’s 12-day war against the Islamic republic in June, which was backed by the United States.Videos posted to social media showed large crowds taking to the streets in new protests in several Iranian cities including the capital Tehran and Mashhad in the east, where images showed vehicles set on fire. The videos filtered out despite a total shutdown of the internet in Iran that has rendered impossible normal communication with the outside world via messaging apps or even phone lines.The internet blackout “is now past the 60 hour mark… The censorship measure presents a direct threat to the safety and wellbeing of Iranians at a key moment for the country’s future”, monitor Netblocks said early Sunday.Several circulating videos, which have not been verified by AFP, allegedly showed relatives in a Tehran morgue identifying bodies of protesters killed in the crackdown.The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said it had confirmed the deaths of 116 people in connection with the protests, including 37 members of the security forces or other officials.But activists warned that the shutdown was limiting the flow of information and the actual toll risks being far higher.The US-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) said it had received “eyewitness accounts and credible reports indicating that hundreds of protesters have been killed across Iran during the current internet shutdown”. “A massacre is unfolding in Iran. The world must act now to prevent further loss of life,” it said. It said hospitals were “overwhelmed”, blood supplies were running low and that many protesters had been shot in the eyes in a deliberate tactic. – ‘Significant arrests’ -In comments to state TV late Saturday, Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni insisted that acts of “vandalism” were decreasing and warned that “those who lead the protest towards destruction, chaos and terrorist acts do not let the people’s voices be heard”. National police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan said authorities made “significant” arrests of protest figures on Saturday night, without giving details on the number or identities of those arrested, according to state TV. Iran’s security chief Ali Larijani drew a line between protests over economic hardship, which he called “completely understandable”, and “riots”, accusing them of actions “very similar to the methods of terrorist groups”, Tasnim news agency reported.In Tehran, an AFP journalist described a city in a state of near paralysis. The price of meat has nearly doubled since the start of the protests, and while some shops are open, many others are not.Those that do open must close at around 4:00 or 5:00 pm, when security forces deploy in force.On Saturday, mobile phone lines appeared to have gone down as well, rendering nearly all communication impossible.Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the ousted shah, who has played a prominent role in calling for the protests, called for new actions later Sunday.”Do not abandon the streets. My heart is with you. I know that I will soon be by your side,” he said. US President Donald Trump has spoken out in support of the protests and threatened military action against Iranian authorities “if they start killing people”.On Sunday, Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Iran would hit back if the US launched military action. “In the event of a military attack by the United States, both the occupied territory and centres of the US military and shipping will be our legitimate targets,” he said in comments broadcast by state TV. He was apparently also referring to Israel, which the Islamic republic does not recognise and considers occupied Palestinian territory.

At a hospital in Gaza, wards are filled with patients fearing they will be left without care if Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is forced out under an Israeli ban due to take effect in March.Last month, Israel announced it would prevent 37 aid organisations, including MSF, from operating in Gaza from March 1 for failing to provide detailed information on their Palestinian staff.”They stood by us throughout the war,” said 10-year-old Adam Asfour, his left arm pinned with metal rods after he was wounded by shrapnel in a bombing in September.”When I heard it was possible they would stop providing services, it made me very sad,” he added from his bed at Gaza’s Nasser Hospital.Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, which oversees NGO registrations, has accused two MSF employees of links to Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, allegations MSF vehemently denies.The ministry’s decision triggered international condemnation, with aid groups warning it would severely disrupt food and medical supplies to Gaza, where relief items are already scarce after more than two years of war.Inside the packed Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, one of the few medical facilities still functioning in the territory, MSF staff were still tending to children with burns, shrapnel wounds and chronic illnesses, an AFP journalist reported.But their presence may end soon.The prospect was unthinkable for Fayrouz Barhoum, whose grandson is being treated at the facility.”Say bye to the lady, blow her a kiss,” she told her 18-month-old grandson, Joud, as MSF official Claire Nicolet left the room.Joud’s head was wrapped in bandages covering burns on his cheek after boiling water spilled on him when strong winds battered the family’s makeshift shelter.”At first his condition was very serious, but then it improved considerably,” Barhoum said.”The scarring on his face has largely diminished. We need continuity of care,” she said.- ‘We will continue working’ -AFP spoke with patients and relatives at Nasser Hospital, all of whom expressed the same fear: that without MSF, there would be nowhere left to turn.MSF says it currently provides at least 20 percent of hospital beds in Gaza and operates around 20 health centres.In 2025 alone, it carried out more than 800,000 medical consultations and over 10,000 deliveries.”It’s almost impossible to find an organisation that will come here and be able to replace all what we are doing currently in Gaza,” Nicolet told AFP, noting that MSF not only provides medical care but also distributes drinking water to a population worn down by a prolonged war.”So this is not really realistic.”Since the start of the war in October 2023, triggered by Hamas’s deadly attack on southern Israel, Israeli officials and the military have repeatedly accused Hamas of using Gaza’s medical facilities as command centres.Many have been damaged by two years of bombardments or overcrowded by casualties, while electricity, water and fuel supplies remain unreliable.Aid groups warn that without international support, critical services such as emergency care, maternal health, and paediatric treatment could collapse entirely, leaving hundreds of thousands of residents without basic medical care.Humanitarian sources say at least three international NGO employees whose files were rejected by Israeli authorities have already been prevented from entering Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing.”For now, we will continue working as long as we can,” said Kelsie Meaden, an MSF logistics manager at Nasser Hospital, adding that constraints were already mounting.”We can’t have any more international staff enter into Gaza, as well as supplies… we will run into shortages.”

Anti-government chants filled the streets of Iran’s capital on Saturday night, as protesters pressed the biggest movement against the Islamic republic in more than three yearsdespite a deadly crackdown under cover of an internet blackout.Iran has blamed the United States for the demonstrations, which ignited in Tehran two weeks ago over economic hardship and have since fanned nationwide with calls for ousting the clerical authorities. Rights groups have reported dozens of deaths and expressed alarm on Saturday that authorities were intensifying the crackdown.Little information is filtering out after an internet shutdown, with monitor NetBlocks showing virtually no connectivity since Thursday.US President Donald Trump said his country was “ready to help” the movement, after warning Iran was in “big trouble” over its efforts to suppress the protests. “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!” Trump posted on Truth Social Saturday. According to the New York Times, Trump was recently briefed on options for possible military strikes.US officials, speaking to the Times anonymously, said Trump has not yet made a final decision about another intervention, after Washington joined Israel’s 12-day war against the Islamic republic in June. Crowds gathered again on Saturday in the north of the Iranian capital, setting off fireworks and banging pots as they shouted slogans in support of the ousted monarchy, according to video verified by AFP. Other videos, that AFP could not immediately verify, showed demonstrations in other parts of the capital where protesters shouted anti-government slogans.Reza Pahlavi, the US-based son of Iran’s deposed shah, urged Iranians to stage more targeted protests over the weekend.”Our goal is no longer just to take to the streets. The goal is to prepare to seize and hold city centres,” Pahlavi said in a video on social media.The demonstrations have posed one of the biggest challenges to the theocratic authorities who have ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution.After initially calling for “restraint” and acknowledging economic grievances, they have since hardened their stance. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a defiant speech on Friday, lashed out at “vandals” doing Trump’s bidding.- ‘Not safe’ -Amnesty International said it was analysing “distressing reports that security forces have intensified their unlawful use of lethal force against protesters” since Thursday.Norway-based Iran Human Rights group has said at least 51 people have been killed in the crackdown so far, warning the actual toll could be higher.It posted images it said were of bodies of people shot dead in the protests on the floor of Alghadir hospital in eastern Tehran. “These images provide further evidence of the excessive and lethal use of force against protesters,” IHR said. On Friday in Tehran’s Saadatabad district, protesters chanted anti-government slogans including “death to Khamenei” as cars honked in support, a video verified by AFP showed. Other images disseminated on social media and by Persian-language television channels outside Iran showed similarly large protests elsewhere in the capital, as well as in the eastern city of Mashhad, Tabriz in the north and the holy city of Qom.In the western city of Hamedan, a man was shown waving a shah-era Iranian flag featuring the lion and the sun. The same flag briefly flew over the country’s embassy in London after protesters reached the building’s balcony, witnesses told AFP. On Thursday and Friday, an AFP journalist in Tehran saw streets deserted and plunged into darkness. “The area is not safe,” said a cafe manager as he prepared to close the shop around 4:00 pm. – ‘Price to pay’ -Authorities say several members of the security forces have been killed, and state television aired images on Saturday of funerals for several members of the security forces killed in the protests, including a large gathering in the southern city of Shiraz.It also aired images of buildings, including a mosque, on fire.Iran’s army said in a statement that it would “vigorously protect and safeguard national interests” against an “enemy seeking to disrupt order and peace”.Global leaders have urged restraint from Iranian authorities, with European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen saying Europe backed Iranians’ mass protests and condemned the “violent repression” against the demonstrators.On Saturday, the start of the working week in Iran, one man in Tehran said he was unable to check his work email.”This is the price to pay before the victory of the people,” he said.

Syria’s Kurdish fighters said Sunday that they agreed under a ceasefire to withdraw from Aleppo after days of fighting government forces in the city. Hours earlier, Syria’s military said it had finished operations in the Kurdish-held Sheikh Maqsud neighbourhood with state television reporting that Kurdish fighters who surrendered were being bused to the north. The military had already announced its seizure of Aleppo’s other Kurdish-held neighbourhood, Ashrafiyeh.Kurdish forces had controlled pockets of Syria’s second city Aleppo and operate a de facto autonomous administration across swathes of the north and northeast, much of it captured during the 14-year civil war.The latest clashes erupted after negotiations to integrate the Kurds into the country’s new government stalled.”We reached an understanding that led to a ceasefire and secured the evacuation of the martyrs, the wounded, the trapped civilians and the fighters from Ashrafiyeh and Sheikh Maqsud neighbourhoods to northern and eastern Syria,” the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) wrote in a statement.Syria’s official SANA news agency reported that “buses carrying the last batch of members of the SDF organisation have left the Sheikh Maqsud neighbourhood in Aleppo, heading towards northeastern Syria”.The SDF initially denied its fighters were leaving, describing the bus transfers as forced displacement of civilians. An AFP correspondent saw at least five buses on Saturday carrying men out of Sheikh Maqsud, but could not independently verify their identities.According to the SDF statement, the ceasefire was reached “through the mediation of international parties to stop the attacks and violations against our people in Aleppo”. The United States and European Union both called for the Syrian government and Kurdish authorities to return to political dialogue.The fighting, some of the most intense since the ousting of long-time ruler Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, has killed at least 21 civilians, according to figures from both sides, while Aleppo’s governor said 155,000 people fled their homes.Both sides blamed the other for starting the clashes on Tuesday.- Children ‘still inside’ -On the outskirts of Sheikh Maqsud, families who had been trapped by the fighting were leaving, accompanied by Syrian security forces.An AFP correspondent saw men carrying children on their backs board buses headed to shelters.Dozens of young men in civilian clothing were separated from the crowd, with security forces making them sit on the ground before transporting them to an unknown destination, according to the correspondent.A Syrian security official told AFP on condition of anonymity that the young men were “fighters” being “transferred to Syrian detention centres”.At the entrance to the district, 60-year-old Imad al-Ahmad was heading in the opposite direction, trying to seek permission to return home.”I left four days ago…I took refuge at my sister’s house,” he told AFP. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to return today.”Nahed Mohammad Qassab, a 40-year-old widow also waiting to return, said she left before the fighting to attend a funeral.”My three children are still inside, at my neighbour’s house. I want to get them out,” she said. A flight suspension at Aleppo airport was extended until further notice.- ‘Return to dialogue’ -US envoy Tom Barrack met Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa on Saturday, and afterwards called for a “return to dialogue” with the Kurds in accordance with the integration framework agreed in March. The deal was meant to be implemented last year, but differences, including Kurdish demands for decentralised rule, stymied progress as Damascus repeatedly rejected the idea.The fighting in Aleppo raised fears of a regional escalation, with neighbouring Turkey, a close ally of Syria’s new Islamist authorities, saying it was ready to intervene. Israel has sided with the Kurdish forces. The clashes have also tested the Syrian authorities’ ability to reunify the country after the brutal civil war and commitment to protecting minorities, after sectarian bloodshed rocked the country’s Alawite and Druze communities last year.