Iran’s nationwide protests appear smothered, with fate of potential US action unclear |
The nationwide protests challenging Iran’s theocracy appeared to be smothered Thursday, a week after the regime shut the country off from the world and escalated a bloody crackdown that activists say killed thousands.
In Tehran, witnesses say recent mornings saw no new signs of bonfires lit the night before or debris in the streets. The sound of gunfire, which had been intense for several nights, has faded.
Meanwhile, Iranian state media announced wave after wave of arrests by authorities, targeting those it calls “terrorists” and also apparently looking for Starlink satellite internet dishes, the only way to get videos and images out to the internet.
“Since January 8, we saw a full-fledged war and anybody who was in the gathering since then is a criminal,” said Justice Minister Amin Hossein Rahimi, according to a report Wednesday from the judiciary’s Mizan news agency.
But there are multiple indications that the threat of mass executions after the protests is receding. Iranian state media on Thursday reported that Erfan Soltani, 26, a man who was due to be executed, would not be given the death sentence. US President Donald Trump said he had been told that killings in the regime’s crackdown were subsiding.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Wednesday there would not be any “hanging today or tomorrow,” despite earlier vows from Tehran to fast-track trials for protesters. He said that the regime was back in “full control.”
The activity followed days of speculation over whether Trump would follow through on threats to strike Iran in response to the killings of thousands of protesters. Trump’s comments about the easing of killings may have implied a hold-off on military action, even as the US evacuated some of its personnel from a military base in Qatar that Iran bombed last year. An NBC report, citing a US official, said Trump would want any strike to be “definitive.”
Amid the uncertainty, Iran closed its airspace to commercial flights for hours on Wednesday night, but reopened it Thursday morning.
The apparent receding of chances for a strike prompted a fall in oil prices.
The UN Security Council was due to meet over the demonstrations later Thursday, as countries in the region urged stability.
Estimates of the death toll range from under 3,000 to over 12,000. A days-long shutdown of the internet by the Iranian regime meant that information about the protests and violence was hard to access and verify. Iran and its Western foes have both described the unrest as the most violent since........