Protesters stormed the construction site of a planned police training facility outside of Atlanta that opponents have dubbed “Cop City.” Twenty-three people are facing domestic terrorism charges.
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John Dickerson reports on the investigation into objects shot down by the U.S. military, a CDC survey on sadness and suicidal thoughts among teen girls, and why thousands are protesting in Israel.
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A young couple have been sentenced by an Iranian court to more than a decade in prison each after posting a video of themselves dancing in front of a major Tehran landmark, according to a U.S.-based human rights group and Britain’s BBC News.
The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said Iranian security forces “violently” arrested Astiyazh Haghighi, 21, and her fiancé Amir Ahmadi, 22, at their home in Tehran on Nov. 1, 2022, soon after they published a video on social media showing them dancing in a city square with the Azadi (Freedom) Monument in the background.
Two Instagram bloggers #Astiaj_Haghighi and #AmirMohammad_Ahmadi were sentenced to a total of 21 years and additional punishments. On November 1, security forces arrested this couple violently after they published a video on social media showing them dancing in a city square. pic.twitter.com/qeHQ1yDDah
HRANA said a court in Tehran handed them both prison sentences of 10 years and six months after convicting them on charges including “encouraging corruption and public prostitution,” and “gathering with the intention of disrupting national security.”
The couple was also barred from using the internet and from leaving Iran for two years, a period which presumably would begin after their incarceration.
The BBC said its sources had confirmed the Nov. 1 arrests, which came after the couple posted the video to both of their Instagram accounts, which together have about 2 million followers. The video appeared to have been deleted from their accounts, but it has been widely shared by others on various social media platforms.
Iranian couple filmed dancing in Tehran were just given a 10-year prison sentence for “promoting corruption, prostitution and propaganda.” In the video that they posted to Instagram, Astiazh Haqiqi and her fiancé Amir Mohammad Ahmadi are dancing by Tehran’s Azadi (Freedom) Tower. https://t.co/xWdGFatDpdpic.twitter.com/r6iWmRGAL6
The Mizan news website, a mouthpiece of Iran‘s judiciary, said the pair were detained not for dancing, but for online activities that included “encouraging people to riot against the country and subversion.”
“Astiazh Haghighi and Amir Mohammad Ahmadi had published a call for a rally on November 4 and called for riots on their Instagram pages,” the statement alleges. “During the riots, they used their page to advertise calls, including the call for November 4.”
Iranian security forces have cracked down mercilessly on anyone joining, or even deemed supportive of nationwide anti-government protests that erupted in September following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the country’s “Morality Police.” She was detained over an alleged breach of the Islamic republic’s strict clothing rules for women.
At least four people have been executed after convictions related to the protests, and hundreds were swept up in mass-arrests. According to HRANA, at least 506 people have been killed in the Iranian authorities’ violent crackdown on the protests, which have died down in recent months.
While Haghighi and Ahmadi’s social media clip merely showed two young people dancing happily and included no overt reference to the protests or Iran’s hardline Islamic cleric rulers, dancing itself is illegal in the conservative nation.
In a report published just several days before the pair’s sentencing emerged, BBC News spoke to Iranian DJs who explained that dancing, especially to modern or Western-style music, had become an act of protest against the regime in and of itself.
James Cromwell, the 83-year-old character actor is known for memorable roles in “L.A. Confidential,” “The Queen,” “Succession,” and his Oscar-nominated performance as Farmer Hoggett in “Babe,” is also known for his activism, including protests against animal testing and a power plant. Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz visits with Cromwell to talk about playing opposite a pig, and gluing himself to a Starbucks counter to protest pricing.
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Law enforcement agencies across the country are being urged to be on alert for protests and social unrest once video of the violent arrest of Tyre Nichols by Memphis police is released to the public. Jeff Pegues has the details.
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Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency Thursday and activated 1,000 National Guard troops in response to ongoing violent protests in downtown Atlanta following a shooting last week near a controversial future law enforcement training site in which a Georgia state trooper was wounded and a man was killed.
The state of emergency is in effect until Feb. 9, according to the document, unless renewed by the governor.
The Atlanta protests center around the building of the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, nicknamed “Cop City.” Protestors have been at the site for months, but on Jan. 18, a protestor identified as Manuel Esteban Paez Teran was shot and killed by law enforcement after authorities said he shot and wounded a Georgia state trooper during a planned multi-agency operation to remove protestors from the area. The trooper was hospitalized and survived.
On Jan. 21, six people were arrested after protests at “Cop City” led to property damage and a police vehicle being set ablaze. Some of the arrested protestors were found with explosives, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said. No one was injured.
Police block downtown streets following a protest, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2023, in Atlanta, in the wake of the death of an environmental activist killed after authorities said the 26-year-old shot a state trooper.
Alex Slitz / AP
Kemp specifically referenced the burnt car in his declaration of the state of emergency.
“Masked activists threw rocks, launched fireworks and burned a police vehicle in front of the Atlanta Police Foundation office building,” the declaration read, in part. “Georgians respect peaceful protests, but do not tolerate acts of violence against persons or property.”
The state of emergency declaration authorizes the Georgia National Guard to be used in response to continued protests. Activated troops will have “the same powers of arrest and apprehension as do law enforcement officers.”
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The 78-year-old leader of Albania’s opposition Democratic Party was punched in the face on Tuesday during an anti-government protest in the country’s capital, video shows.
Sali Berisha, Albania’s former president and prime minister, was leading protesters toward a summit of global leaders in Tirana when a man suddenly broke through the crowd and punched him in the face. Video of the incident shows the man being quickly subdued and beaten. Berisha was photographed soon after with a black eye.
Sali Berisha, the leader of the Albanian opposition center-right Democratic Party, injured, looks on after he has been attacked during an anti-government protest held near a summit of European Union leaders and their counterparts from the Western Balkans in the capital Tirana, Albania , on Tuesday, Dec. 6, 2022.
Franc Zhurda / AP
Berisha was leading a crowd protesting alleged corruption committed by Prime Minister Edi Rama, who many blame for a steep rise in the country’s cost-of-living, according to the Associated Press.
In a statement on Facebook translated to English, Albanian police said that the attack was “unprecedented and totally reprehensible.” According to the Associated Press, they had also said that the suspect previously faced charges related to violence and drug trafficking.
After the attack, Berisha made a statement alleging that the man who attacked him is a “criminal police agent,” police said. But they added that the suspect, 31-year-old Gert Shehu, “has never been and is not a criminal police agent from any State Police structure” and has never been used as an infiltrator or information source, according to the translated statement.
In an interview with Euronews Albania, Shehu’s mother apologized to Berisha for her son’s actions, saying he is not affiliated with any political party.
“I don’t want my son’s misfortune to be used by the police,” she said, according to Euronews. “He worked as a motorcyclist, delivering pizzas. He has no friends who deal with these kinds of things. He was absolutely not used by anyone. He has had different problems. He had absolutely no political affiliations. He doesn’t even go to vote. I don’t know why he went to the protest today. I apologize to the man that was assaulted by him, Mr. Berisha. I don’t want a political party to be involved in his [health] problems. I am very sorry that they are dealing with people’s misfortunes.”
Berisha, along with his wife and children, has been banned from entering the U.S. since last year, when the country sanctioned him for alleged “significant corruption,” according to the AP. Berisha has denied the accusations.
Tuesday’s attack happened as Berisha joined leaders from the European Union and other Western Balkans nations for the first-ever summit between them to take place in the Western Balkans region. There, they discussed Russia’s war in Ukraine and immigration, among other issues, and the EU reaffirmed its “full and unequivocal commitment” to the prospect of the Western Balkans joining the international group.
US-based tech giant Apple’s supplier Foxconn’s flagship iPhone plant in China recently saw factory workers clash with security personnel. This protest at the world’s largest Apple iPhone factory emerged amid strict COVID-19 restrictions that have fuelled discontent among workers.
Moreover, these strict COVID-19 restrictions also disrupted the production of new Apple iPhones ahead of Christmas and January’s Lunar New Year holiday, as many workers were either put into isolation or fled the plant.
Victoria Scholar, head of investment at Interactive Investor, said, ”The worker unrest at Foxconn’s plant in China could weigh on Apple’s November iPhone shipments” as concerns grow over Apple’s ability to deliver products for the busy holiday period.
According to reports, Foxconn is set to see a reduction in November shipments as thousands of employees quit their jobs.
However, even if one tries to shop online, wait time on Apple’s website are now up to 40 days for the new iPhone 14 Pro, which is only expected to grow over the coming weeks as more consumers try to find iPhone Pros to purchase as gifts.
“Apple is still viewed as one of the more resilient stocks in the tech sector… However, Apple continues to hold off from providing official guidance given the macroeconomic uncertainty,” Scholar added.
According to the reports, Foxconn’s factory in China’s Zhengzhou is the only one that makes premium iPhone models, including the iPhone 14 Pro, and it is unlikely to resume full production by the end of this month.
In the West, many shoppers looking for Apple’s latest high-end phones returned empty-handed from its stores this Black Friday because the smartphone giant was struggling with production snafus in China.
Dan Ives, an analyst at investment firm Wedbush, said, “iPhone shortages are accelerating and were front and centre this morning on Black Friday across many retailers, Apple Stores, and online channels.”
Ives, while referring to Apple’s headquarters, added, ”We believe many Apple Stores now have iPhone 14 Pro shortages based on model or colour or storage of up to 25%-30% below normal heading into a typical December, which is not a good sign heading into holiday season for Cupertino.”
Fans at the World Cup said the stadium barred them from entering with shirts and flags protesting the regime in Iran. Inside, security officials were also seen confronting a woman over her jersey, which read Mahsa Amini, whose death in Iranian custody sparked the unrest. Roxana Saberi has the story.
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Iran arrested a prominent former member of its national soccer team on Thursday over his criticism of the government as authorities grapple with nationwide protests that have cast a shadow over its competition at the World Cup.
The semiofficial Fars and Tasnim news agencies reported that Voria Ghafouri was arrested for “insulting the national soccer team and propagandizing against the government.”
Ghafouri, who was not chosen to go to the World Cup, has been an outspoken critic of Iranian authorities throughout his career. He objected to a longstanding ban on women spectators at men’s soccer matches as well as Iran’s confrontational foreign policy, which has led to crippling Western sanctions.
Voria Ghafouri of Esteghlal looks on during a Persian Gulf Pro League match between Esteghlal and Padideh FC at Azadi Stadium on June 21, 2021 in Tehran, Iran.
Mohammad Karamali/DeFodi Images/Getty Images
More recently, he expressed sympathy for the family of a 22-year-old woman whose death while in the custody of Iran’s morality police ignited the latest protests. In recent days he also called for an end to a violent crackdown on protests in Iran’s western Kurdistan region.
The reports of his arrest came ahead of Friday’s World Cup match between Iran and Wales. At Iran’s opening match, a 6-2 loss to England, the members of the Iranian national team declined to sing along to their national anthem and some fans expressed support for the protests.
Prior to that gesture, the team had lost support from fellow Iranians for its meeting with hardline Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Holly Dagres, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, told CBS News this week.
Dagres said that while the team remaining silent during the anthem “may seem very significant, many Iranians were already disappointed in the team’s behavior during the past week.”
In addition to the meeting with Raisi, Dagres said photos showing the players celebrating their World Cup entry, as “protesters were being slain in the streets by security forces,” left many Iranians to view their team “as not representative of them, but of the clerical establishment.”
The protests were ignited by the Sept. 16 death of Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish woman arrested by the morality police in the capital, Tehran. They rapidly escalated into nationwide demonstrations calling for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. The western Kurdish region of the country, where both Amini and Ghafouri are from, has been the epicenter of the protests. Shops were closed in the region on Thursday following calls for a general strike.
Iranian officials have not said whether Ghafouri’s activism was a factor in not choosing him for the national team. He plays for the Khuzestan Foolad team in the southwestern city of Ahvaz. The club’s chairman, Hamidreza Garshasbi, resigned later on Thursday, the semiofficial ILNA news agency reported, without elaborating.
The protests show no sign of waning, and mark one of the biggest challenges to Iran’s ruling clerics since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought them to power. Rights groups say security forces have used unleashed live ammunition and bird shot on the protesters, as well as beating and arresting them, with much of the violence captured on video. Last week, Iran sentenced a person to death for taking part in the protests.
At least 442 protesters have been killed and more than 18,000 detained since the start of the unrest, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that has been monitoring the protests.
The U.N. Human Rights Council voted Thursday to condemn the crackdown and to create an independent fact-finding mission to investigate alleged abuses, particularly those committed against women and children.
Authorities have blamed the unrest on hostile foreign powers, without providing evidence, and say separatists and other armed groups have attacked security forces. Human Rights Activists in Iran says at least 57 security personnel have been killed, while state media have reported a higher toll.
The protesters say they are fed up after decades of social and political repression, including a strict dress code imposed on women. Young women have played a leading role in the protests, stripping off the mandatory Islamic headscarf to express their rejection of clerical rule.
Some Iranians are actively rooting against their own team at the World Cup, associating it with rulers they view as violent and corrupt. Others insist the national team, which includes players who have spoken out on social media in solidarity with the protests, represents the country’s people.
The team’s star forward, Sardar Azmoun, who has been vocal about the protests online, was on the bench during the opening match. In addition to Ghafouri, two other former soccer stars have been arrested for expressing support for the protests.
Other Iranian athletes have also been drawn into the struggle.
Iranian rock climber Elnaz Rekabi competed without wearing the mandatory headscarf at an international competition in South Korea in October, a move widely seen as expressing support for the protests. She received a hero’s welcome from protesters upon returning to Iran, even as she told state media the move was “unintentional” in an interview that may have been given under duress.
Earlier this month, Iran’s football federation threatened to punish players on its beach soccer team after it defeated Brazil at an international competition in Dubai. One of the players had celebrated after scoring a goal by mimicking a female protester cutting off her hair.
Both players and fans are using the World Cup stage as an opportunity to highlight issues of inclusion and human rights, including LGBTQ+ rights in host nation Qatar and the ongoing anti-regime protests in Iran.
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Tehran — Iran has begun producing uranium enriched to 60 percent at its Fordo plant, official media reported Tuesday about the underground facility that reopened three years ago amid the breakdown of its nuclear deal with major powers. The move was part of Iran‘s response to the United Nations nuclear watchdog’s adoption last week of a censure motion drafted by Western governments accusing it of non-cooperation.
“Iran has started producing uranium enriched to 60 percent at the Fordo plant for the first time,” Iran’s ISNA news agency reported.
While 60 percent enriched uranium still isn’t technically weapons-grade (weapons require uranium enriched to 90 percent or higher), having a significant stockpile of it could reduce the time Iran would need to make a bomb.
Iran has always denied any ambition to develop a nuclear weapon, insisting its nuclear activities are for civilian purposes only, but the U.S. and its allies — most notably Israel and major European powers — don’t trust Tehran.
Under the landmark 2015 nuclear deal, Iran agreed to mothball the Fordo plant and limit its enrichment of uranium at other facilities to 3.67 percent, which is sufficient for most civilian uses, as part of a package of restrictions on its nuclear activities aimed at preventing it covertly developing a nuclear weapon. In return, major powers including the U.S. agreed to relax sanctions they had imposed over Iran’s nuclear program.
But the deal began falling apart in 2018 when then U.S. President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the agreement and reimposed crippling economic sanctions on Iran unilaterally.
The following year, Iran began stepping away from its commitments under the deal. It reopened the Fordo plant and starting enriching uranium to higher levels.
A file photo released by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran on November 6, 2019 shows a forklift carrying a cylinder containing uranium hexafluoride gas set to be injected for enrichment into centrifuges in Iran’s Fordo nuclear facility near the city of Qom, Iran.
France, Germany and the U.K., which were all party to the now-defunct 2015 nuclear agreement, expressed “grave concern” last year over Iran’s upgrade to 60 percent and said the Islamic Republic had “no credible civilian need for enrichment at this level.”
President Joe Biden has expressed a desire for Washington to return to a revived version of the agreement and on-off talks have been underway since April last year, but Secretary of State Antony Blinken said late last month that he saw little scope to restore the deal, as Iran battles nationwide protests sparked by the September death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman.
Commenting Tuesday on the Iranian announcement, U.S. special envoy for Iran Robert Malley said Washington had seen Tehran’s response to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) censure motion coming.
“Unfortunately, the Iranian response was not unexpected,” Malley told the Al Jazeera television network, adding that the U.S. would closely monitor the next steps taken by Iran.
Asked about negotiations to revive the nuclear deal, Malley said Tehran’s crackdown on anti-government protests, and the Islamic Republic’s admitted sale of drones to Russia for its war in Ukraine, had turned the Washington’s focus away from the discussions.
Implementation of the 2015 deal was overseen by the IAEA, but the U.N. watchdog’s relations with Iran have declined sharply in recent months. The IAEA board of governors passed a resolution on Thursday criticizing Iran for its lack of cooperation.
Iran announced late Sunday that it had begun taking retaliatory measures but did not specify what they were.
“In response to the recent action of three European countries and the United States in the adoption of a resolution against Iran, some initial measures have been decided by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran,” foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said.
The ISNA news agency said the upgraded enrichment at Fordo was one part of Iran’s response.
Nov. 1, 2019 satellite image provided by provided by Maxar Technologies shows the Fordo nuclear facility, just north of the holy city of Qom in Iran
Maxar Technologies via AP
“As well, in a second action in response to the resolution, Iran injected (uranium hexafluoride) gas into two IR-2m and IR-4 cascades at the Natanz plant,” it said, referring to an older enrichment facility where uranium was already being enriched to 60 percent.
The U.N. watchdog has been pressing Iran to explain the discovery of traces of nuclear material at three sites it had not declared, a key sticking point that led to the adoption of an earlier censure motion by the IAEA in June.
In a report seen by AFP earlier this month, the IAEA said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium stood at 3,673.7 kilograms as of October 22, a decrease of 267.2 kilograms from the last quarterly report. But that included significant stockpiles of uranium enriched to higher levels — 386.4 kilograms to 20 percent and 62.3 kilograms to 60 percent.
The IAEA complains that the ability of its inspectors to monitor Iran’s stepped-up nuclear activities has been hampered by restrictions imposed by Iran.
DETROIT – A Starbucks in Detroit was forced to close on Friday after four protesters blocked the entrance by encasing their feet in concrete.
Four PETA supporters protested Starbucks’ upcharge of non-dairy milk by encasing their feet in concrete and blocking the store’s entrance for four hours with signs and chants.
Two of the four protesters were taken away in an ambulance.
PETA Starbucks protest (PETA)
“Starbucks’ punitive price hike on vegan milks harms cows, the planet, and customers who are lactose-intolerant—many of whom are people of color,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman. “PETA has appealed to Starbucks to stop profiting from the plant-based milk upcharge, but so far, greed continues to define the company’s position.”
This comes as the latest Starbucks protest from PETA supporters. The previous “cement-in” took place outside of a Nashville Starbucks which resulted in the arrest of four protesters.
Other supporters have superglued themselves to counters in Chicago, New York City, and at the company’s headquarters in Seattle.
The Detroit protest comes on the last day of the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference.
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Activists say since anti-regime protests broke out in Iran nearly two months ago, more than 300 people have been killed and 14,000 arrested, including around two dozen actors and musicians. Still, protests continue in the streets and in the form of art. Roxana Saberi has more.
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Iran has deployed mounted police in a bid to contain more than seven weeks of protests sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, according to videos posted online. The clerical state has been rocked by a protest movement that erupted when Amini, 22, died after her arrest for allegedly breaking Iran’s strict hijab dress rules for women.
Young women have led the way, removing and burning their head coverings, chanting anti-regime slogans and confronting security forces on the street despite a crackdown that has killed more than 300 people, according to Norway based monitoring group.
In a rare move, the authorities have deployed a posse of police on horseback in Tehran’s streets to stifle the demonstrations, according to a video posted on social media and verified by AFP. The special unit is seen standing in front of a row of Iranian national flags on a major road in the northwest Tehran neighborhood of Sadeghiyeh.
Created in 2013, the mounted division of Iran’s police force — known as Asvaran — has been seen on the streets of the Iranian capital in the past, mainly during parades, but it is uncommon to see it deployed during protests.
An unverified image from video posted to Twitter on November 6, 2022 purportedly shows people taking part in an anti-government protest in Mariwan, in Iran’s northwest Kurdish region.
Twitter
Amini, an Iranian of Kurdish origin, died on September 16, three days after she was arrested in Tehran by the morality police, igniting nationwide protests.
The Iranian authorities have adopted a range of tactics in a bid to suppress the protests, which officials refer to as “riots.”
Security forces have fired directly on protesters using live ammunition, bird shot, tear gas and even paintballs. The government has also imposed internet restrictions, including blocking access to Instagram and WhatsApp, and has waged a campaign of mass arrests.
Norway-based group Iran Human Rights, which relies on a network of sources inside Iran, said in its latest update on Saturday that the security forces had killed at least 304 people in the crackdown on the nationwide protests since they erupted in mid-September, including 41 children and 24 women.
The group’s director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, said in the statement that despite the high death toll, “Iranians continue taking to the streets and are more determined than ever to bring fundamental changes. The response from the Islamic Republic is more violence.”
He called on the international community to pressure Iran to end the crackdown on the protesters.
Hundreds of people have been swept up in the wave of arrests, including protesters, journalists and activists.
On Tuesday, Iran’s judiciary said more than 1,000 people had been formally indicted over their role in the protests, and a spokesman vowed to deal with them severely.
“Now, the public, even protesters who are not supportive of riots, demand from the judiciary and security institutions to deal with the few people who have caused disturbances in a firm, deterrent and legal manner,” judiciary spokesman Masoud Setayeshi said, according to the Reuters news agency.
Among the latest members of Iran’s beleaguered civil society to face charges were two female journalists accused of propaganda against the state.
Niloufar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi, who have both been behind bars for than a month already, “have been remanded in custody for propaganda against the system and conspiring against national security,” Setayeshi said on Tuesday.
Hamedi, 30, a journalist for the reformist Shargh newspaper, was arrested on September 20 after she visited the hospital where Amini spent three days in a coma before her death.
Mohammadi, 35, a reporter for the Ham Mihan newspaper, was arrested on September 29 after she travelled to Amini’s hometown of Saqez in Kurdistan province to cover her funeral.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran on Friday marked the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran as its theocracy faces nationwide protests after the September death of a 22-year-old woman who was arrested by the country’s morality police. Meanwhile, activists in southeast Iran claimed security forces killed at least 16 people in protests there.
Iranian state-run television aired live feeds of various commemorations around the country, with some in Tehran waving placards of the triangle-shaped Iranian drones Russia now uses to strike targets in its war on Ukraine. But while crowds in Tehran looked large with chador-wearing women waving the Islamic Republic’s flag, other commemorations in the country appeared smaller, with only a few dozen people taking part.
Iran’s hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi, speaking to people gathered in front of the former U.S. Embassy building, criticized those protesting the theocracy.
“Anyone taking the smallest step in the direction of breaching security and riots, must know that they are stepping in the direction of enemies of the Islamic Revolution,” he said. “Americans think they can execute the plan they carried out in some countries like Syria and Libya here. What a false dream!”
Those at the commemoration also waved effigies of French President Emmanuel Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Signs and chants from the crowd called out: “Death to America! Death to Israel!”
The demonstrations that have convulsed Iran for seven weeks after the death of Mahsa Amini mark one of the biggest challenges to the country’s clerical rulers since they seized power in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. At least 314 protesters have been killed and 14,170 arrested since the unrest began, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that’s been monitoring the crackdown on demonstrators.
Iran’s government has not offered an overall death toll, with one state newspaper even making the counterfactual claim that no one had been killed by security forces over the 49 days of protests.
Later on Friday, protests began in Iran’s southeastern Sistan and Baluchestan province, which has seen weeks of unrest. Online videos purported to show people marching in the streets and some throwing stones, with the crackle of gunfire in the background and clouds of tear gas rising. Some protesters appeared bloodied, while later footage purportedly showed dead bodies at morgues.
Advocacy group HalVash claimed security forces killed at least 16 people Friday, identifying nine of them by name.
Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency later reported that protesters set fire to a police stand in Khash, a city in Sistan and Baluchestan, and attacked the local governor’s office.
On Thursday, a Shiite cleric reportedly was shot and killed in Sistan and Baluchestan, a long restive province that’s predominantly Sunni.
Hard-liners within Iran long have bussed government workers and others into such Nov. 4 demonstrations, which have a carnival-like feel for the students and others taking part on Taleqani Street in downtown Tehran.
This year, however, it remained clear Iran’s theocracy hopes to energize its hard-line base. Some signs read “We Are Obedient To The Leader,” referring to 83-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say over all matters of state in the country. The weekslong demonstrations have included cries calling for Khamenei’s death and the overthrow of the government.
The annual commemoration marks when student demonstrators climbed over the fence at the embassy on Nov. 4, 1979, angered by then-President Jimmy Carter allowing the fatally ill Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to receive cancer treatment in the United States.
The students soon took over the entire, leafy compound. A few staffers fled and hid in the home of the Canadian ambassador to Iran before escaping the country with the help of the CIA, a story dramatized in the 2012 film “Argo.”
The 444-day crisis transfixed America, as nightly images of blindfolded hostages played on television sets across the nation. Iran finally let all the captives go the day Carter left office on Ronald Reagan’s inauguration day in 1981.
Marking the anniversary, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said that officials “are grateful for the selfless sacrifice of our diplomats who served in Tehran” and called for the release of Americans held by Iran.
“The Iranian regime has a long history of unjustly imprisoning foreign nationals for use as political leverage,” Price said.
That enmity between Iran and the U.S. has ebbed and surged over the decades since. The U.S. and world powers reached a nuclear deal with Iran in 2015 that drastically curtailed its program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions. However, then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the deal in 2018, sparking years of tensions since.
Late Thursday in California at a rally before the U.S. midterm elections, President Joe Biden also stopped his speech to address a crowd that held up cellphones displaying the message “FREE IRAN.”
“Don’t worry, we’re gonna free Iran,” Biden said in an aside during a campaign rally for Democratic Rep. Mike Levin. He added, “They’re gonna free themselves pretty soon.”
In his speech Friday, Raisi referenced Biden’s comments.
“Maybe he said this because of a lack of concentration. … He said we aim to liberate Iran,” Raisi said. “Mr. President! Iran was liberated 43 years ago, and it’s determined not to become your captive again. We will never become a milking cow.”
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby on Friday described Biden’s comments as expressing “solidarity with the protesters, as he’s been doing from the very outset.”
“It’s going to be up to the people of Iran to determine their future. And that hasn’t changed,” Kirby said.
Biden had said he was willing to have the U.S. rejoin the nuclear deal, but talks have broken down. Since the protests began in mid-September, the American position appears to have hardened with officials saying restoring the deal isn’t a priority amid the demonstrations.
On Friday, some protesters waved giant placards of atoms as a reminder that Iran now enriches uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels. Nonproliferation experts warn Iran now has enough enriched uranium to make at least one nuclear weapon if it chose, though Tehran insists its program is peaceful.
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials in the Trump administration compiled extensive intelligence dossiers on people who were arrested, even for minor offenses, during Black Lives Matter protests in Oregon.
Initial drafts of the dossiers even included friends of the subjects as well as their interests, but those were later removed and replaced with a note that they would be made available upon request, according to an internal review by the Department of Homeland Security.
The dossiers, known by agents as baseball cards, were previously normally compiled on non-U.S. citizens or only on Americans with “a demonstrated terrorism nexus,” according to the 76-page report. It was previously released last year but contains new revelations based on extensive redactions that were removed by the Biden administration.
Ben Wizner, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union’s free speech, privacy and technology project, said the report indicates leaders of the Department of Homeland Security wanted to inflate the risk caused by protesters in Portland. The city became an epicenter of sometimes violent demonstrations in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, a Black man, by a Minneapolis police officer. But many protesters, including women belonging to a “Wall of Moms” ad hoc group and military veterans, were peaceful.
“We have a dark history of intelligence agencies collecting dossiers on protesters,” Wizner said over the phone from New York, referring to domestic spying in the 1960s and 1970s against civil rights activists, Vietnam War protesters and others.
“We need to be especially careful if agencies that are tasked with intelligence gathering are going to step in to to look at protest activity and where Americans are exercising their First Amendment rights,” Wizner said.
Protesters who break the law aren’t immune from being investigated, Wizner said, but intelligence agencies should be careful not to create “a chilling environment” for Americans to legally exercise their right to dissent.
The report reveals actions carried out by the DHS’ Office of Intelligence and Analysis in June and July 2020, when militarized federal agents were deployed to Portland.
When the dossiers, officially known as Operational Background Reports, were being compiled, some DHS analysts voiced concerns over the legality of collecting intelligence “on protestors arrested for trivial criminal infractions having little to no connection to domestic terrorism,” the report said. Some of the employees even refused to participate.
FILE – Federal agents arrest a demonstrator during a Black Lives Matter protest in Portland, Ore., on July 29, 2020. U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials under then-President Donald Trump sought to compile intelligence dossiers on everyone attending Black Lives Matter protests, according to a newly unredacted report. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, who obtained the report, said in an email to reporters that surveillance of Portland protesters in 2020 “included lists of friends, family and social media associates for people who posed no threat to homeland security.” (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez, File)
U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, obtained the report with most redactions removed and provided it to reporters Thursday. Wyden, a member of the Senate select committee on intelligence, criticized DHS leaders in the Trump administration for actions revealed in the document.
“Political DHS officials spied on Oregonians for exercising their First Amendment right to protest and justified it with baseless conspiracy theories,” Wyden said.
Brian Murphy, who was then the acting undersecretary of DHS’ intelligence unit, insisted on calling violent protesters “Violent Antifa Anarchists Inspired,” even though “overwhelming intelligence regarding the motivations or affiliations of the violent protesters did not exist,” according to the report.
Top DHS leaders even wanted the department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis to create dossiers on everyone participating in the Portland protests, but Murphy advised that the unit could only look at people who were arrested.
Surveillance was broadly used in other cities as well during the 2020 protests, with federal agencies sending unmanned drones and military aircraft to assist local law enforcement. But it’s not clear exactly how that surveillance was used: The ACLU filed a federal lawsuit against several government agencies seeking that information late last year, but the case is still underway in the Southern District of New York.
Still, some agencies have acknowledged the surveillance was problematic. An investigation by the Inspector General Department of the Air Force, completed in August 2020, found that Air National Guard aircraft was used to monitor protests in Minnesota, Arizona, California and Washington, D.C. without clear approval from military leaders.
The surveillance in Phoenix, Arizona was “particularly concerning,” the Inspector General’s investigation found, because documentation associated with the flight suggested it was being used to allow law enforcement agencies to rapidly deploy to locations where they hoped to deter protest or looting.
“There is no scenario in which it is acceptable or permissible to use DoD (Department of Defense) assets to deter demonstrations and protests, assuming they remain lawful,” the report said.
The DHS’ internal review on Portland also shows the baseball cards — which were usually one-page summaries — included any past criminal history, travel history, “derogatory information from DHS or Intelligence Community holdings,” and publicly available social media. Draft dossiers included friends and family of protesters as well.
Wyden credited current Undersecretary for Intelligence and Analysis Kenneth Wainstein for reviewing the Trump administration’s “unnecessary redactions” and releasing the unredacted report.
Associated Press reporter Rebecca Boone contributed to this report from Boise, Idaho.
Satellite photos analyzed Monday by the Associated Press showed a fire that burned through part of Iran’s notorious Evin Prison had damaged one of the largest buildings at the complex, as Iranian officials acknowledged that at least eight people were killed in the blaze. The satellite photos, taken on Sunday by Planet Labs PBC, showed the roof of a large building in the northern section of the prison burning away.
The prison holds thousands of people convicted by Iran‘s opaque court system on charges ranging from theft to murder, but it also holds many political prisoners, including two U.S. citizens. CBS News learned that both of the Iranian-Americans held in Evin prison were safe as of Sunday, but one of them, Emad Sharghi, was moved to solitary confinement.
Sharghi is nearly halfway through serving a 10-year sentence he was given on espionage charges. His family and the U.S. government say he’s being held by Iran’s authoritarian regime as a political hostage, and his family called over the weekend on President Biden to push for his release. Shargi’s sister and daughter told CBS News’ Margaret Brennan on Sunday that they’d spoken with him directly.
Siamak Namazi, the other American citizen held at Evin, was also safe as of Sunday morning and had spoken to relatives in the U.S., his family’s attorney Jared Genser told CBS News.
A cropped image from a satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC shows Evin Prison in Tehran, Iran, Oct. 16, 2022, after a fire at the complex amid ongoing anti-government protests across the country.
Planet Labs PBC via AP
The cause of the huge fire remained unclear on Monday. Iran’s government has claimed that it started during a fight among inmates, but critics dispute that, suggesting it was instead linked to the unprecedented wave of anti-government protests that have raged across Iran for a month.
Smoke billowed over the prison, gunshots echoed and projectiles were seen hurtling into the air over the prison in videos posted to social media on Saturday while, outside the prison, protesters continued chanting for the death of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of the Norway-based Iran Human Rights monitoring group, told CBS News on Monday that he believes Iranian officials may have instigated the violence at the prison.
“When you hear about Evin, you think about torture, forced confession and political dissidents,” he told CBS News. “What we have heard from prisoners and their families is that they [security personnel] have attacked one of the wards, thrown tear gas inside, there has been shooting inside the prison.”
Iran’s security forces have been accused by outside governments and groups for weeks of a violent crackdown aimed at quelling the protests, which have been reported in more than 100 towns and cities across the Islamic Republic.
The unrest, sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who’s family say she was killed in the custody of Iran’s morality police after being arrested for wearing an improper head covering, is unlike anything the country’s ruling clerics have faced since at least 2009.
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi has blamed the United States for the chaos in his country, as Iran’s leaders have done many times previously, calling America “the Great Satan.”
“They never take responsibility for anything bad that happens inside Iran,” said Amiry-Moghaddam. “I think this is what people have had enough of. We have a highly incompetent and repressive regime, never responsive to their own people, and of course they blame everyone else than themselves.”
People have continued to take to the streets despite the brutal crackdown, with women and girls often leading the charge. Their goal is to bring down the regime that seized power in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and while that regime has put down violent unrest before, including the large anti-government protests in 2009, this time, it looks different.
“It seems people have lost their fear,” Amiry-Moghaddam told CBS News. “What Iranians have lived under the last 43 years has been a nightmare. I would say the countdown of the Islamic Republic has started.”
Iran’s supreme leader warned the country will stand firm against the anti-government protests that are now in their fifth week. President Joe Biden called on Iran’s leaders to stop the violence against its citizens. CBS News correspondent Roxana Saberi reports.
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Iranians continue to protest the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of Iran’s morality police, now into their fourth week. Roxana Saberi speaks with Human Rights Watch about the ongoing demonstrations and the police brutality and government crackdown in attempts to quell the unrest.
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