Protests in Iran began just over two weeks ago with shopkeepers — often seen as the backbone of support for the Islamic Republic — in Tehran angered by the collapse of the national currency. The demonstrations have since spread to students and street protests in several cities across the country.
Based on video footage, these are the largest protests since 2022, and the anger is no longer limited to economic hardship. Demonstrators have been chanting slogans against the entire clerical leadership and the Supreme Leader himself.
Terrifying accounts are now emerging from Iranian hospitals, where doctors are fighting to save the lives of protesters wounded by gunfire during a brutal crackdown on demonstrations.
“Code 99” — an emergency alert reserved for patients with gunshot wounds — echoes through hospital corridors as medical staff confront chaos and death, reports The Times.
At a hospital in Mashhad, in northeastern Iran, a doctor tried to resuscitate a 22-year-old woman who had been shot by security forces on Friday evening.
“I performed CPR three times, but she died,” he said.
“They are firing live ammunition,” he added.
The message is among the few that have leaked out of Iran despite a near-total shutdown of internet and phone services since last Thursday. Dr. Kayvan Mirhadi, an Iranian-American physician in New York, has been using his social media channels to communicate with colleagues inside Iran, as he did during the protests following the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022.
Before the internet blackout, he said, he received hundreds of messages seeking advice on how to treat wounded protesters.
