After Mass protests in Iran began in December and continued to worsen in the new year, the government shut down internet access across the country. But after weeks of trying, a man in Iran managed to survive the blackout and spoke to CBS News on a video call, describing what sounds like a massacre of anti-government protesters in early January.
January 8 and 9 are considered the bloodiest and most brutal days in the government’s crackdown on protesters since its founding in 1979.
The man did not want to be named, his head was wrapped in a black cloth and his eyes were covered with goggles because he feared the government would find him and put him in prison or execute him. He described a crackdown on Jan. 9 in the city of Yazd, about 400 miles southeast of the capital Tehran.
He was in a crowd of about 1,500 people marching to Imam Hossein Square when, he said, government troops began firing at them from the front and rear in what he said was a plan to mow them down from both sides.
Two sources, including one in Iran, previously told CBS News that at least 12,000 and possibly as many as 20,000 people were killed in protests across Iran.
“More than a thousand people were killed that night … because I hear a lot of gunshots,” he said.
He said the only reason he survived was because he was in the middle of the crowd and was able to escape down a side street.
Now it’s quiet on the streets across the country. The man told CBS News that people were sad and angry and that he had lost many of his “brothers and sisters” – friends, comrades-in-arms – in the protests to overthrow the regime.
When asked what he hoped to achieve from the protests, the man said: “All the people this evening come out and say ‘Pahlavi,'” by which he was referring Crown Prince Reza Pahlavithe exiled son of the last Shah of Iran, now living in the Washington, D.C. area.
“I just want Pahlavi, OK?” he said.
In an interview with CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell earlier this month, Pahlavi described himself as the voice of Iranians in the outside world and claimed that people chanting his name during protests showed he could play a role as interim leader, although it is unclear how much support he actually has in the country.
“Why am I offering my services to Iran? I am answering their call,” he said. “I am a bridge at this point and not the destination.”
Pahlavi’s father became shah in 1941 and consolidated power in a 1953 coup supported by the United States and the United Kingdom that overthrew the Iranian prime minister. He ruled until 1979, when he was deposed by the Islamic Revolution.
Some now hope that the USA will intervene again.
“On behalf of all Iranians, I ask President Trump to help us achieve freedom, because our freedom is the freedom of the entire world from terrorists,” the man said.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly warned Iranian leaders not to kill peaceful protesters Mass execution of people arrested during the riots. He has also threatened possible military action.
The strike group of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln recently arrived in the U.S. military’s Central Command area of
The video call with the Iranian, who suffered numerous problems due to the blackout, was cut short shortly after his plea for U.S. support, but in follow-up texts he told CBS News he wanted the U.S. to provide air support “to send the entire leadership of this regime in a lightning strike to their own ideological paradise.”
