The Hill – More than 6,000 people have been killed amid the Iranian government’s crackdown on recent protests in the country, an activist group said Tuesday.
The protests began on Dec. 28 in response to the plummeting value of the rial, Iran’s currency. The government responded to the protests with the bloodiest crackdown in several decades in the country and a two-week internet blackout.
The Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), an independent U.S.-based advocacy organization for human rights in Iran, said that 6,159 people have been reported dead.
The group said 5,804 demonstrators, 214 government-affiliated forces, 92 children and 49 civilians who were not participating in the protests are included in this total.
The agency sources its information from a network of activists in the country, and The Associated Press noted that HRANA’s death counts in previous Iranian conflicts have been accurate.
HRANA’s reported death toll is double the number provided by the Iranian government, which said last week that 3,117 people had been killed during protests in the country. Iran has a history of undercounting death tolls.
In an op-ed published by The Wall Street Journal last week, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi pushed back on what he called “lies being peddled abroad” about the government’s crackdown on protests, and he sharply criticized the Trump administration’s threats to intervene if the government killed protesters.
President Trump said Thursday the U.S. has a “massive fleet” heading to the Middle East to prepare for a potential intervention. The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and American warships arrived in the region Monday.
“We have a big force going toward Iran,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One last Thursday. “I’d rather not see anything happen, but we’re watching them very closely.”
On Saturday, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Cmdr. Mohammad Pakpour said the country’s military has its “finger on the trigger” in case the U.S. decides to respond.