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Iran’s top prosecutor on Friday described as “completely false” US President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that he has stopped the execution of 800 jailed dissidents. Meanwhile, activists say the death toll from the bloody crackdown on protests across the country has reached at least 5,002.
Activists fear many are dead. They struggle to verify information after two weeks of the most comprehensive internet blackout in Iran’s history.
Tensions have risen between the US and Iran as a US aircraft carrier fleet approaches the Middle East – an “armada” that Trump likened to reporters late Thursday.
Analysts say that despite repeated warnings to Tehran, the military buildup so far could give Trump the option to strike. Mass killing of prisoners is one of the military’s red lines, and another is killing peaceful demonstrators.
“While President Trump now appears to have backed off, military assets have continued to enter the region, recognizing that pressure from regional leaders and airstrikes alone are not enough to stop the regime, indicating that a move could still happen,” New York-based think tank the Sofan Center said in an analysis on Friday.
The prayer leader threw Trump’s insults
Trump has repeatedly said that Iran has stopped the killing of 800 people arrested in the protests, without citing a source for the claim. On Friday, Iran’s top prosecutor, Mohammad Movahedi, strongly denied this in a statement to the Judiciary’s Mezan news agency.
“This claim is completely false; this number does not exist, nor has the judiciary made any decision,” Movahedi said.
Judiciary has summoned some of those arrested. MoharebIt is translated as “enemies of God”. That charge carries the death penalty. The 1988 massacre that killed at least 5,000 people was used among others.
Meanwhile, Mohammad Javad Haji Ali Akbari, a Friday prayer leader in Tehran, mocked Trump as a “yellow-faced, yellow-haired and humiliated man” who was “like a barking dog.”
“That idiot has started to scare the people, especially with what he said about the Iranian leader,” Iran’s state radio said in a statement. In the event of any damage, your interests and bases in the region will be a clear and precise target of Iranian forces.
According to the latest death toll, the US-based Human Rights Watch News Agency (HRANA) reported that 4,716 of the dead were peaceful protesters, 203 were government-affiliated, 43 were children, and 40 were civilians who did not participate in the protests. He added that more than 26,800 people have been arrested in the ongoing arrest campaign by the authorities.
Iranian journalist and human-rights expert Omid Utsari – who was jailed, beaten and given a televised confession for his writing – explains the life of the government’s crackdown and what it feels like in Iran at this moment.
The group’s figures were previously accurate due to unrest in Iran and relied on a network of activists inside Iran to confirm the deaths. That death toll is more than any protest or riot seen in Iran in decades and is reminiscent of the chaos surrounding Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Iran’s government released its first death toll on Wednesday, saying 3,117 people had died. He added that 2,427 people who died in the protests that started on December 28 were civilians and security forces, while the rest were “terrorists”. In the past, the Iranian theocracy has downplayed or underreported the number of people killed in violence.
The Associated Press could not independently assess the death toll, in part because authorities cut off internet service and blocked international calls to the country.
Warships in motion
The US military, on the other hand, has moved more military assets to the Middle East, including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and accompanying warships from the South China Sea.
Trump said Thursday on Air Force One that the U.S. is moving its ships to Iran “if it wants to take action.”
“We have a huge fleet headed that way and we probably don’t have to use it,” Trump said.
Trump cited several negotiations that U.S. officials held with Iran over its nuclear program before Israel launched a 12-day war against the Islamic Republic in June. Iran has previously threatened a “peanut-sized” military response to a US attack on its uranium enrichment facilities.
“They should have made a deal before we hit them,” Trump said.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry, headed by Abbas Aragchi, had a direct line with US Ambassador Steve Witkoff and held several talks on Iran’s nuclear program.