UN says right to peaceful protest must be protected after Iran cuts internet

Iran was largely cut off from the outside world on Friday (January 9) after authorities blacked out the internet to curb growing unrest, and videos showed buildings aflame in anti-government protests raging in cities across the country.

Rights groups have documented dozens of deaths of protesters in nearly two weeks and, with Iranian state TV showing clashes and fires, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported that several police officers had been killed overnight.

In a televised address, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed not to back down, accusing demonstrators of acting on behalf of opposition groups abroad and the United States.

The protests pose the biggest internal challenge in at least three years to Iran's clerical rulers, who look more vulnerable than during past bouts of unrest amid a dire economic situation and after last year's war with Israel and the United States.

While the initial protests focused on the economy, with the rial losing half its value against the dollar last year and inflation topping 40% in December, they have morphed to include slogans aimed directly at the authorities.

Iranian rights group HRANA said on Friday it had documented at least 62 deaths, including 14 security personnel and 48 protesters, since demonstrations began on December 28.

U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the United Nations was very disturbed by the loss of life.

"People anywhere in the world have a right to demonstrate peacefully, and governments have a responsibility to protect that right and to ensure that that right is respected," he said.

The United States is to blame for “the transformation of peaceful protests into violent, subversive acts and widespread vandalism” in Iran, the country’s United Nations ambassador wrote to the Security Council on Friday.

Iran condemns “the ongoing, unlawful, and irresponsible conduct of the United States of America, in coordination with the Israeli regime, in interfering in Iran’s internal affairs through threats, incitement, and the deliberate encouragement of instability and violence,” Iran’s U.N. Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani wrote in a letter, seen by Reuters.

He accused Washington of “destabilizing practices” that undermine the founding U.N. Charter, violate fundamental principles of international law, and threaten the foundations of international peace and security.

Iran's mission to the U.N. in New York said on social media that the "satanic plot hatched by the United States and the Zionist regime to fragment Iran and to engineer an internal civil war will be neutralized through the national solidarity of the Government and the people of Iran, the ignominy of which will remain upon them."

Images published by state television showed what it said were burning buses, cars and motorbikes as well as fires at underground railway stations and banks and videos verified by Reuters showed hundreds of people marching in Tehran.

-Matt Stock, Roselle Chen/Reuters