Financial Times:

Andrew England in London

Iranians took to the streets overnight, defying a government crackdown on nationwide protests as state media reported the deaths of several security force members.

Videos posted on social media purported to show crowds gathering in Tehran on Friday night chanting anti-regime slogans, despite warnings from authorities that protesters would not be afforded any “legal leniency”.

It was not possible to verify the videos as an internet blackout that has cut off the Islamic republic from the outside world stretched into a third day.

The demonstrations, which present the biggest domestic threat to the regime in several years, erupted as Iran grapples with external and domestic pressures including a depreciating currency, while the state has fewer resources to assuage the population’s anger.

Iranian state television reported on Saturday that three police officers were killed during the night in attacks on security forces in Shiraz and surrounding areas, quoting Tasnim, a state-affiliated news agency close to the Revolutionary Guards.

State media accused “armed groups” of attacking “public and private property in several provinces, causing extensive damage”, including mosques.

State TV said several security officials were also killed in Tehran on Thursday, when the protests first escalated, and that two police officers died in the religious city of Qom. Another two members of the security forces lost their lives in the city of Shushtar.

A local prosecutor and four members of the security forces were killed “during riots” in the northeastern town of Esfarayen on Thursday, it added. Several members of the Basij, a volunteer force affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards, were also killed, the Press TV report on Saturday said.

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