Iran police say they detained five people they describe as protest organizers in Semnan
Police in Iran’s Semnan province said they had detained five people they described as organizers of earlier protests, after carrying out several operations on the outskirts of the city.
The provincial police commander said the detentions followed what he described as intelligence monitoring of those he accused of playing key roles in the unrest, according to Iranian media.
Iranian authorities often use terms such as “organizers,” “agitators” or “rioters” to describe people involved in protests.
Internet monitoring group NetBlocks said Iran has been largely cut off from the global internet for two weeks, after authorities imposed sweeping restrictions during nationwide protests.
In a post on X, NetBlocks said: “With the digital blackout silencing Iranians’ voices, authorities perpetrated one of the deadliest crackdowns in modern history.”
It added: “Iran was cut off from the world as people went out on the streets to call for change.”
The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned the United States and Israel against any attack on Iran, saying the country’s forces were ready to act on orders from the supreme leader.
Major General Mohammad Pakpour said Washington and Israel should draw lessons from past conflicts and avoid any move that could trigger a wider confrontation.
“We warn our enemies, especially the United States and the Zionist regime, to learn from historical experience and from what they saw in the 12-day war,” Pakpour said in a message carried by state media. “Otherwise they will face a more painful and regretful fate.”
He said the Guards were on high alert and ready to act if ordered.
“The Revolutionary Guards are more ready than ever, with fingers on the trigger, to carry out the orders and directives of the supreme leader,” he said.
More than 800 film industry professionals from around the world have signed a joint statement condemning what they described as the Iranian government’s killing of protesters and violent repression of nationwide demonstrations.
The statement, reported by The Hollywood Reporter, is signed by actors, directors and filmmakers from Europe, the United States and elsewhere, including Juliette Binoche, Marion Cotillard and Yorgos Lanthimos.
“We, the undersigned, with anger, grief and a deep sense of moral responsibility, condemn in the strongest possible terms the organized crimes committed by the Islamic Republic of Iran against protesting civilians,” the statement said.
The signatories accused Iranian authorities of responding to protests against repression, economic hardship and discrimination with live ammunition, mass arrests, torture and enforced disappearances, while imposing sweeping restrictions on internet access to limit the flow of information.
Iran remains one of the world’s worst countries for abusing detained journalists, with reporters subjected to torture and harsh prison conditions amid intensified repression following nationwide protests, according to a new report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
"Iran held five journalists as of December 1, down from a peak of 55 three years earlier, but has generated the highest number of documented torture and beating cases against imprisoned media workers since records began in 1992," CPJ’s 2025 global prison census published on Wednesday said.
The report said Iran’s record worsened following nationwide protests, with journalists frequently detained for covering demonstrations and dissent.
CPJ links Iran’s earlier spike in journalist jailing to nationwide protests in recent years, and rights groups say reporters have been repeatedly detained for covering demonstrations and dissent.
Rights groups also report that many of those detained have been held in notorious facilities such as Tehran’s Evin Prison under harsh conditions.
Iran has been under a near-total internet and telecommunications blackout since early January amid nationwide protests, severely restricting the flow of information from inside the country.
Internet monitoring groups including NetBlocks recorded sharp drops in connectivity across Iran as authorities sought to limit access to social media, messaging services and independent news coverage.
The Middle East and North Africa remains the region with the third-highest number of jailed journalists worldwide. CPJ said Iran is among several states where authorities routinely treat critical reporting as a security threat, using broadly defined anti-state or terrorism-related accusations to justify arrests.
The report warned that Iran continues to arrest reporters, particularly those covering protests and economic grievances. Detainees face harsh conditions, prolonged pre-trial detention and due-process violations in breach of international law, the organization said.
It said the global trend of jailing and mistreating journalists in countries including Iran not only reflects authoritarian governance but also enables corruption and abuse of power by shielding them from public scrutiny.
Fragments of what has unfolded in Iran over the past two weeks are beginning to emerge from beneath a near-total internet blackout, revealing killings that have largely remained hidden from public view.
Through sporadic messages, rare phone calls and accounts relayed to media outlets operating outside the country, details are surfacing of civilians shot during nationwide protests that erupted earlier this month and were met with what sources describe as one of the deadliest crackdowns in the Islamic Republic in decades.
Among the cases now coming to light is the killing of a shopkeeper in the southern city of Shiraz, according to people familiar with the incident who spoke to Iran International.
Local sources said the man had sheltered protesters inside his business during demonstrations on January 8.
The shop owner, identified as Gholamreza Zareh, ran the Linda flower shop on Qadamgah Street. Witnesses said that after protesters had fled, Zareh later opened his door to assess whether the security presence had subsided. Security forces then shot him in the neck, killing him instantly, according to the accounts.
The fate of the protesters who had sought refuge in the shop remains unclear.
In a separate incident in the southwestern city of Andimeshk, a 19-year-old protester, Shahab Fallahpour, was killed by security forces during demonstrations, people familiar with the case told Iran International.
Sources said Fallahpour, a wrestler from the Shohada neighborhood, was shot on January 9 by sniper fire from a rooftop on Parto Street, without warning. His body was buried three days later, before dawn on January 12, in the presence of his parents and under the supervision of government forces, according to the accounts.
No funeral ceremony was permitted, and the family has since been pressured not to speak publicly, the sources said.
Iran International has reported that at least 12,000 people have been killed since the protests began. CBS News has cited estimates placing the death toll as high as 20,000.
Sources told Iran International on Wednesday that hospitals and morgues are facing shortages of body bags, resulting in bodies being stored in corridors and other areas.
They described heavy security deployments at medical facilities, restrictions on families’ access, and limits on the registration of information related to the dead, which they said appeared aimed at preventing the true scale of the killings from becoming public.
With communications still largely severed, the full extent of what has occurred across Iran may not be known for weeks, if ever.
