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President Trump has threatened military action against Iran as rights groups say hundreds of Iranians have been killed in government crackdowns on protests sweeping the country. Trump also said the U.S. was set to meet with Iranian officials. Iran has said channels of communication with the U.S. remain open. NPR's Ruth Sherlock reports on the biggest challenge to Iran's theocratic regime in years. And a warning - this report does include the sound of gunfire.
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UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in non-English language).
RUTH SHERLOCK, BYLINE: Ululations, grief and also rage at this funeral in Tehran for people killed in antigovernment protests. In this video, as the coffin is carried, mourners shout, I will kill whoever killed my brother.
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UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in non-English language).
SHERLOCK: What began as protests over the collapse of the country's currency and an economy already squeezed by international sanctions have spread and morphed into furious calls to end Iran's theocracy.
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SHERLOCK: Videos posted online from the city of Mashhad, the birthplace of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, show streets where protesters have set up barricades and lit fires.
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SHERLOCK: NPR has not been able to independently authenticate these videos. They show demonstrators in masks clashing with security forces.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Non-English language spoken).
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SHERLOCK: The protests are now nationwide.
SKYLAR THOMPSON: Over the course of 15 days, we've seen over 580 unique protest points in every province in more than 185 cities.
SHERLOCK: Skylar Thompson is the deputy director of Human Rights Activists in Iran, or HRA, a monitoring group that is based in the United States but maintains extensive networks across Iran. She says some 89 security officers have died in the clashes, but that the death toll among protesters in the government's crackdown is far higher - more than 500 people. NPR cannot independently verify these numbers.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Crying) My papa is no longer alive.
SHERLOCK: Outside a morgue just south of Tehran, relatives grieve as they find loved ones among dozens of bodies wrapped in black body bags that lie spread out on the concrete ground.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Crying).
SHERLOCK: Iranian state television has framed the popular protests as actions fermented by the United States, which has long been hostile to Iran's regime and by Israel.
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ABBAS ARAGHCHI: (Speaking Farsi).
SHERLOCK: Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told foreign diplomats in Iran that the protests had turned violent to give the U.S. an excuse to intervene militarily. President Trump did open a window for diplomacy, telling reporters on Air Force One that a, quote, "meeting" was being set up, but in the same breath, threatened military action if the killing of protesters didn't stop. Lina Khatib, a visiting scholar at the Harvard Kennedy School Middle East Initiative, says this is a critical moment.
LINA KHATIB: The regime in Iran is the weakest it's been since the Islamic republic came into existence in 1979.
SHERLOCK: Geopolitically, Khatib says, Iran relies on proxy militias to project its power. But the collapse of the pro-Iran regime in Syria a little over a year ago and Israel's decimation of allies - Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon - have dealt a serious blow. Khatib says Iran poured countless state funds into these militias.
KHATIB: Now, people are seeing that this sacrifice and investment that they had been made to do has not been worth it because the proxies are defeated militarily.
SHERLOCK: Whether this is the beginning of the end of the regime remains to be seen. While the protests are large, there is no sign yet of defections or dissent in the security apparatus that maintains the country's theocracy in power.
Ruth Sherlock, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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