Iran protests kill prosecutor as unrest enters 13th day
Shafaq News– Tehran
Iranian protesters allegedly killed a local prosecutor and several security personnel overnight in the northeastern city of Esfarayen, Iranian authorities said on Friday, as anti government unrest entered its 13th day under a near total internet blackout.
In a statement, the provincial judiciary said Ali Akbar Hosseinzadeh, the city's public and revolutionary prosecutor, was inspecting the situation alongside police and security forces when protesters set fire to the trailer where the officials were stationed. Emergency teams were blocked from reaching the site, the statement added, without specifying how many security personnel were killed.
The incident marks the first reported killing of a senior judicial official since the protests erupted late last month.
The death adds to a rising toll that has reached at least 42 people, including protesters, bystanders and security personnel, according to the US based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which also reported more than 2,200 arrests across nearly 300 locations in all 31 provinces.
Rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, said the deadliest crackdowns were reported in the western provinces of Lorestan and Ilam, where security forces were accused of using live ammunition and raiding hospitals to detain wounded demonstrators.
US President Donald Trump earlier warned that Iran would be “hit very hard” if authorities continued killing protesters.
Read more: Khamenei: US behind Iran unrest
Iranian authorities have not released official casualty figures.
Meanwhile, Turkish Airlines cancelled all five scheduled flights from Istanbul to Tehran on Friday, according to Istanbul Airport data, while five flights operated by Iranian carriers were also grounded.
Connectivity monitoring group NetBlocks also reported that traffic dropped to about one percent of normal levels, while internet infrastructure firm Cloudflare recorded a roughly 90 percent decline within 30 minutes.
The protests began on December 28 at Tehran’s Grand Bazaar after the rial slid to around 1.45 million to the dollar, intensifying pressure from annual inflation estimated by officials at about 52 percent. What started as merchant strikes over soaring prices quickly spread to universities and provincial cities, with demonstrators chanting slogans against Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and, in some cases, expressing support for Iran’s pre revolutionary monarchy.
Iran’s economy remains weakened by years of sanctions and by the aftermath of a June 2025, 12 day conflict with Israel and the United States, which targeted nuclear facilities.
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