Iran’s Interior Ministry’s state security agency has issued its first death threat related to months of anti-government protests.
Tehran, Iran – Iran’s security agency has issued its first update on continued unrest across the country, saying more than 200 people have been killed since September.
In a statement published on Saturday, Iran’s Interior Ministry’s government security council issued its first warning of “threats”.
It said the dead included security forces, those killed in “terrorist operations”, those killed by foreign-aligned groups and targeted for execution by the government, “terrorists” and “persons armed with anti-terrorist forces who were members of separatist groups”.
The security agency also reported “innocent people who have died in security” but did not say how they were killed.
The announcement comes days after Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said more than 300 people had been “killed and killed” during the uprising.
These numbers are lower than those reported by several international humanitarian organizations, which put the death toll at over 400.
Protests erupted in Iran shortly after the September 16 death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who was arrested by Tehran’s “morality police” for refusing to obey the law.
Iranian officials have accused the United States, Israel, the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia of being behind the unrest.
The statement of the security agency on Saturday also emphasized the role of foreign intervention, saying that the country has been fighting a “hybrid war” led by the countries against the “terrorist” media groups.
“What is being witnessed today is not civil protest but destruction, violence and insecurity of a violent minority,” it said.
The United Nations has called on Iranian authorities to refrain from using “unbridled force” in response to the protests and has called for the release of several political prisoners as they protest death sentences linked to the protests.
Last month, the UN Human Rights Council voted to launch a commission to investigate the protests. Tehran dismissed the move as “politically motivated” which it said it did not agree with.
