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As Internet Restored, Online Iran Protest Videos Show Chaos

Associated Press

   DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - Machine gun fire answers rock-throwing
   protesters. Motorcycle-riding Revolutionary Guard volunteers chase
   after demonstrators. Plainclothes security forces grab, beat and drag a
   man off the street to an uncertain fate.

   As Iran restores the internet after a weeklong government-imposed
   shutdown, new videos purport to show the demonstrations over gasoline
   prices rising and the security-force crackdown that followed.
   The videos offer only fragments of encounters, but to some extent they
   fill in the larger void left by Iran's state-controlled television and
   radio channels. On their airwaves, hard-line officials allege that
   foreign conspiracies and exile groups instigated the unrest. In print,
   newspapers offered only PR for the government or had merely
   stenographic reporting at best, the moderate daily Hamshahri said in an
   analysis Sunday.
   They don't acknowledge that the gasoline price hike Nov. 15, supported
   by its civilian government, came as Iran's 80 million people already
   have seen their savings dwindle and jobs scarce under crushing U.S.
   sanctions. President Donald Trump imposed them in the aftermath of
   unilaterally withdrawing America from Tehran's nuclear deal with world
   powers.

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