Iran protests: Videos show intensifying crackdown and brutal tactics used on protesters
Human rights groups have warned of Iranian security forces’ escalating response to demonstrations in the western province of Kurdistan.
Clips from the regional capital Sanandaj appear to show security forces firing weapons in residential neighbourhoods and large groups of anti-riot police moving around the city.
The city was one of the first to see demonstrations following the death of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini after she was in the hands of security forces.
With internet disruption reported across Iran and reports of local journalists being arrested for covering the demonstrations, information about the situation on the ground is scarce.
But footage from across the country is surfacing online. One widely-condemned video showed a police officer sexually assaulting a female protester while trying to arrest her in Tehran’s Argentina Square.
A voice in the video can be heard saying: “Oh they have arrested her, it is a girl. Please let her go. Why no one goes to her rescue?”
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A new video has emerged online showing a police officer sexually assaulting a female protester while trying to arrest her in Tehran’s Argentina Square.
With reports of escalating tactics in Kurdistan province, Sky News has analysed footage emerging from the region’s capital.
This video was shared on Monday by Norway-based group Hengaw, which monitors human rights violations in Iran’s Kurdistan province. They say it was captured in Naysar, which is a northern suburb of Sanandaj.
Sky News has not been able to independently verify the video. Although reverse image searches of the video’s key frames confirm that the video is recent.
In it, at least six members of the Iranian security forces can be seen firing weapons in a residential neighbourhood.
The sound made when reloading indicates the weapons being fired are shotguns, according to analysts at the UK-based weapons research group, the Omega Research Foundation.
And while it’s possible that they are using rubber bullets, they say it’s more likely that they are shotgun pellets.
It’s difficult to make out the direction of fire, but Hengaw say that officers in the video were firing directly at homes.
Amnesty International has also said that it’s received reports of officers firing tear gas at people’s homes.
Another video shared by Hengaw last weekend shows used canisters and cartridges.
The person recording the video says they were used to “suppress the people” and ends the video by saying “death to Khameini”.
According to analysts at the Omega Research Foundation, those casings on the left and in the centre are shotgun cartridges.
The metal canisters on the top right would have contained CS gas – also known as tear gas.
The Omega Research Foundation says that the disused cartridges in the videos are similar to others found in other cities in Iran.
“While each require further verification, all evidence in combination points to the use of live fire against protesters,” it said.
But human rights groups say this is all just the tip of the iceberg.
“We are entering a sensitive phase of the demonstrations and confrontations. The regime is using more and more force to repress the protests. And we’ve seen that in Sanandaj, Kurdistan but also in small towns in the region,” said Taimor Aliassi, United Nations representative for the Association of Human Rights in Kurdistan of Iran.
“They’re now using new arms against protesters that we haven’t seen before [in the protests]” he told Sky News.
Other videos reportedly from Sanandaj demonstrate chaotic scenes on the ground.
In this video, at least 14 motorbikes driven by members of the security forces drive through the city.
Many of the bikes are carrying two officers, with those on the back equipped with weaponry. Shots can be heard throughout the video, and protesters can be seen throwing rocks at the officers as they pass.
Hengaw say that it’s not unusual for officers to travel on motorbikes in Iran, but it’s rare to see so many together at one time.
Other footage shared by the group demonstrates the scale of the security force’s presence in the city.
This video, which they say was captured on Thursday, shows a convoy made up of at least 14 vehicles including cars, motorbikes and trucks carrying security forces.
Those visible appear to be wearing the uniform of Iran’s anti-riot police.
However, Hengaw warn that officers from the military Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have been reported as operating in the region wearing police and riot police uniforms in recent days.
It’s therefore difficult to discern exactly which units are part of the convoy depicted.
“All sorts of security forces, both plain cloth and uniform, have been transferred to Sanandaj,” he told Sky News.
“We see photos taken by residents showing security forces stationed every five metres on the street. It’s really quite a militarised situation.”
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
Brazil was “a bit surprised” Britain hasn’t contributed to a new investment fund to protect tropical forests, despite having helped to design it, a senior official has told Sky News.
The Amazon nation has used its role as host of the COP30 climate talks to tout its new scheme, which it drew up with the help of countries including the UK and Indonesia.
With Britain’s budget day looming, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer decided against chipping in when he visited the Amazonian city of Belem this month.
The news came out the day before Brazil was about to launch it.
“The Brazilians were livid” about the timing, one source told Sky News.
Lush rainforest and waterways in the Brazilian Amazon
A waterfall in Kayapo territory in Brazil
Garo Batmanian, director-general of the Brazilian Forestry Service and coordinator of the new scheme, said: “We were expecting [Britain to pay in] because the UK was the very first one to support us.”
The so-called Tropical Forests Forever Facility (TFFF) was drawn up with the help of “very bright people from the UK”, according to Mr Batmanian.
“So we are a bit surprised, but we expect that once internal situations get better, hopefully they will come through,” he added.
The UK’s climate envoy, Rachel Kyte, told Sky News: “The PM agreed the decision was about not doing it now, as opposed to not ever.
“We will look at the TFFF after the budget and are carefully tracking how others are investing.”
Forest growing back from a fire (bottom left) and deforestation alongside healthy sections of Amazon rainforest
The fund has been hailed as a breakthrough – if Brazil can get if off the ground.
Paul Polman, former Unilever boss and now co-vice chair of Planetary Guardians, said it could be the “first forest-finance plan big enough to change the game”.
Why do tropical forests need help?
At their best, tropical forests like the Amazon and the Congo Basin provide food, rainfall and clean air for millions of people around the world.
They soak up carbon dioxide – the main driver of climate change – providing a cooling effect on a heating planet.
But they are being nibbled away at by extractive industries like oil, logging, soy and gold.
Parts of the Amazon rainforest already emit more carbon dioxide than they store.
Other pockets are expected to collapse in the next few decades, meaning they’d no longer be rainforests at all.
Read more from COP30:
Climate protest in Brazilian city aims to hold governments’ feet to the fire
Are climate summits saving the world – or just hot air?
COP30 – why is it so controversial?
Greenpeace says deforested land could be better used, which would save the need for more land to be cleared
Cristiane Mazzetti, senior forest campaigner at Greenpeace Brazil, said: “Science is saying we need to immediately stop deforestation and start restoring what was once lost.
“And in Brazil, we already have enough open land that could be better used for agricultural expansion… There is no need [to open up] new areas.”
Can Brazil’s new investment fund save the world’s rainforests?
For decades, forests have been worth more dead than alive.
Successive attempts to save them have fallen flat because they’ve not been able to flip the economics in favour of conservation, or ensure a long-term stream of cash.
Brazil hopes the TFFF, if it launches, would make forests worth more standing than cut down, and pay out to countries and communities making that happen.
Mining is a lucrative industry in the Amazon. Pic: Reuters
“We don’t pay only for carbon, we are paying for a hectare of standing forest. The more forests you have, the more you are paid,” said Mr Batmanian.
The other “innovation” is to stop relying on aid donations, he said.
“There is a lot of demand for overseas development assistance. It’s normal to have that. We have a lot of crisis, pandemics, epidemics out there.”
Instead, the TFFF is an investment fund that would compete with other commercial propositions.
Mr Polman said: “This isn’t charity, it’s smart economic infrastructure to protect the Amazon and keep our planet safe.”
How does the TFFF raise money?
The idea is to raise a first tranche of cash from governments that can de-risk the fund for private investors.
Every $1 invested by governments could attract a further $4 of private cash.
The TFFF would then be able to take a higher amount of risk to raise above-market returns, Brazil hopes.
That means it could generate enough cash to pay competitive returns to investors and payments to the eligible countries and communities keeping their tropical trees upright.
At least 20% of the payments has been earmarked for indigenous communities, widely regarded as the best stewards of the land. Many, but not all, have welcomed the idea.
Will the TFFF work?
The proposal needs at least $10-25bn of government money to get off the ground.
So far it has raised $5.5bn from the likes of Norway, France, and Indonesia. And the World Bank has agreed to host it, signalling strong credibility.
But it’s a hard task to generate enough money to compete with lucrative industries like gold and oil, many of which governments already invest in.
Dr Andreza Aruska de Souza Santos, director, Brazil Institute, King’s College London
Dr Andreza Aruska de Souza Santos, director of King’s College London’s Brazil Institute, said TFFF has the potential to make it “very financially viable to have a forest as a forest”.
“But the problem is that TFFF would need to compete with these very profitable industries… because you need to capture as much money from governments, from investors.
“And so far it’s not quite balancing the competitiveness of other sectors that are potentially harmful for forests.”
Hot, humid, loud and proud: the climate protest in the city of Belem was the embodiment of the Amazonian rainforest that surrounds it.
Hawkers brought carts selling bananas, mangoes and coconuts – while demonstrators bore umbrellas, hats and fans to shelter from the scorching tropical sun.
After a week of dreary negotiations at the COP30 climate talks, the streets were alive with the drumming of maracatu music and dancing to local carimbo rhythms on Saturday.
It was a carnival atmosphere designed to elevate sober issues.
The climate protest in the city of Belem
Among those out on the streets were Kayapo people, an indigenous community living across the states of Para and Mato Grosso – the latter at the frontier of soy expansion in the Brazilian Amazon.
They are fighting local infrastructure projects like the new Ferrograo railway that will transport soy through their homeland.
The soy industry raises much-needed cash for Brazil’s economy – its second biggest export – but the kayapo say they do not get a slice of the benefit.
The climate protest
Read more:
Cop out: Is net zero dead?
COP30: Are climate summits saving the world – or just hot air?
Uti, a Kayapo community leader, said: “We do not accept the construction of the Ferrograo and some other projects.
“We Kayapo do not accept any of this being built on indigenous land.”
Many Brazilian indigenous and community groups here want legal recognition of the rights to their land – and on Friday, the Brazilian government agreed to designate two more territories to the Mundurucu people.
It’s a Brazilian lens on global issues – indigenous peoples are widely regarded as the best stewards of the land, but rarely rewarded for their efforts.
In fact, it is often a terrible opposite: grandmother Julia Chunil Catricura had been fighting to stay on Mapuche land in southern Chile, but disappeared earlier this year when she went out for a walk.
Lefimilla Catalina, also Mapuche, said she’s travelled two days to be here in Belem to raise the case of Julia, and to forge alliances with other groups.
The protest in the city of Belem
“At least [COP30] makes it visible” to the world that people are “facing conflicts” on their land, she said.
She added: “COP offers a tiny space [for indigenous people], and we want to be more involved.
“We want to have more influence, and that’s why we believe we have to take ownership of these spaces, we can’t stay out of it.”
They are joined by climate protesters from around the world in an effort to hold governments’ feet to the fire.
Louise Hutchins, convener of Make Polluters Pay Coalition International, said: “We’re here to say to governments they need to make the oil and gas companies pay up for the climate destruction – they’ve made billions in profits every day for the last 50 years.”
After three years of COPs with no protests – the UAE, Egypt, and Azerbaijan do not look kindly on people taking to the streets – this year demonstrators have defined the look, the tone and the soundtrack of the COP30 climate talks – and Saturday was no different.
Whether that will translate into anything more ambitious to come out of COP30 remains to be seen, with another week of negotiations still to go.
For now, the protests in Belem reflect the chaos, the mess and the beauty of Brazil, the COP process, and the rest of the world beyond.
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