Iran says 3,000 people arrested as antigovernment protests subside

Internet access remains cut off as the streets of Tehran, other Iranian cities are largely calm after widescale unrest.

The Iranian authorities say at least 3,000 people have been arrested in weeks of antigovernment demonstrations, state news agencies reported, as the mass protests have largely been quelled.

The streets of the Iranian capital Tehran and other parts of the country were comparatively calm on Friday amid a heavy presence of security forces.

Reporting from Tehran, Al Jazeera’s Tohid Asadi said the public mood was mixed, with many people anxious over the possibility that the situation could escalate again and frustrated by a continuing internet shutdown.

“Internet access is unavailable for almost everyone in Iran,” Asadi said.

Online monitor NetBlocks said on Friday that a nationwide internet blackout had entered its eighth day after Iranian authorities cut off access at the height of the protests last week.

Thousands of Iranians had taken to the streets since late December in anger over soaring inflation and the steep devaluation of the local currency, prompting a harsh crackdown from the Iranian authorities.

Iranian leaders have described the protesters as “rioters” and accused foreign countries, notably the United States and Israel, of fuelling the unrest.

Human rights groups say more than 1,000 protesters have been killed since the demonstrations began, while the Iranian government said at least 100 security officers also were killed in protest-related attacks.

Al Jazeera has not been able to independently verify those figures.

The prospect of a wider escalation loomed this week as US President Donald Trump repeatedly threatened to order military action against Iran should more protesters be killed.

But Trump has since softened his rhetoric after telling reporters that Tehran had cancelled plans to execute hundreds of protesters.

“I greatly respect the fact that all scheduled hangings, which were to take place yesterday (Over 800 of them), have been cancelled by the leadership of Iran. Thank you!” Trump wrote on social media on Friday afternoon.

Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, also said on Thursday evening that he hoped “a diplomatic resolution” could be reached to quell tensions between Tehran and Washington.

Roxane Farmanfarmaian, a lecturer at the University of Cambridge specialising in international relations and the Middle East, said the Trump administration has sent “a great deal of mixed signals” in recent days.

“It’s difficult to know where the red lines are, and for [Iran] to then feel any confidence in any talks that might begin,” Farmanfarmaian told Al Jazeera.

For now, she said, the Iranian authorities are moving to “quiet things down” domestically – including by not executing any demonstrators – “and to proceed to try to improve the economic situation, which is what’s truly the threat to this regime”.

The protests were the largest since a 2022-2023 protest movement spurred by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code for women.

While the internet blackout has made it difficult to get information from Iran, Amnesty International warned this week that “mass unlawful killings” appear to have been “committed on an unprecedented scale”.

The rights group urged the international community to demand investigations into what happened and hold any perpetrators to account.

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera’s Asadi said on Friday that the Iranian authorities are “trying to keep the situation under control, both domestically and internationally”, amid the possibility of any re-escalation with the US.

“They’re trying to keep the doors of diplomacy … open while also sending messages of warning, pertaining to their preparedness for any scenario,” he said.