New deadly clashes between protesters and security forces erupted in Iran, rights groups and local media said Sunday, as demonstrations first sparked by anger over the rising cost of living entered a second week.Â
At least 12 people, including members of the security forces, have been killed since the protests kicked off with a shopkeepers' strike in Tehran on December 28, according to a toll based on official reports.
Overnight, protests featuring slogans criticising the Islamic republic's clerical authorities were reported in Tehran, Shiraz in the south, and in areas of western Iran where the movement has been concentrated, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) monitor.
The demonstrations are the most significant in Iran since a 2022-2023 movement sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for allegedly violating Iran's strict dress code for women.
The latest protests have been concentrated in parts of the west with large populations of the Kurdish and Lor minorities, and have yet to reach the scale of the 2022-2023 movement, let alone the mass street demonstrations that followed disputed 2009 presidential elections.
But they do present a new challenge for supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei -- 86, and in power since 1989 -- coming on the heels of a 12-day war with Israel in June that saw nuclear infrastructure damaged and key members of the security elite killed.
With the government under pressure to show a response to the economic pain, spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani told state TV on Sunday that citizens would receive a monthly allowance equivalent to $7 for the next four months.
President Donald Trump warned Sunday that Iran would get "hit very hard" by the United States if more protesters die.
"We're watching it very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they're going to get hit very hard by the United States," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One -- a day after the American operation to capture Tehran's ally Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
- Deadly clashes -
The protests have taken place in 23 out of Iran's 31 provinces and affected, to varying degrees, at least 40 different cities, most of them small and medium-sized, according to an AFP tally based on official announcements and media reports.
The Norway-based Hengaw rights group said that Revolutionary Guards opened fire on protesters in the Malekshahi county of the western Ilam province on Saturday, killing four members of Iran's Kurdish minority.
The group said it was checking reports that two other people had been killed, adding dozens more were wounded. It also accused the authorities of raiding the main hospital in the city of Ilam to seize the bodies of the protesters.
The Iran Human Rights NGO, also based in Norway, gave an identical toll of four dead, as well as 30 wounded, after "security forces attacked the protests" in Malekshahi.
It said funerals for the dead took place on Sunday with mourners chanting slogans against the government and Khamenei.
Both organisations posted footage of what appeared to be bloodied corpses on the ground, in videos verified by AFP.
Iranian media said a member of the security forces was killed in a clash with "rioters" who attempted to storm a police office, with "two assailants" killed.
In Tehran, sporadic demonstrations on Saturday night were reported in districts in the east, west and south, the Fars news agency said.
- Hundreds detained -
On Sunday, the vast majority of shops were open in the capital, although the streets appeared less crowded than usual, with riot police and security forces deployed at major intersections, AFP observed.Â
Images verified by AFP showed Iranian security forces using tear gas to disperse a group of protesters who gathered in central Tehran during the day on Sunday.
HRANA said that over the last week at least 582 people have been arrested.Â
Hengaw said almost all of those killed were from ethnic minorities, chiefly Kurds and Lors.
Abroad, several hundred people took part in two separate rallies in Paris on Sunday to support the protesters, following similar actions in London a day earlier, AFP correspondents said.
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