Iran arrests eight ‘linked to CIA’ in street unrest

TEHRAN: Iran has arrested eight people it accused of CIA links and sending abroad information on recent urban unrest, days after the United States said it had received thousands of messages on a protest crackdown in the Islamic republic.New York-based Human Rights Watch has accused Tehran of “deliberately covering up” more than 140 deaths that it said came when security forces suppressed demonstrations against a sharp fuel price hike.Iran said that among the more than 500 people arrested were eight who were “linked to the CIA”, state news agency IRNA said late Wednesday, citing the head of the intelligence ministry’s counter-espionage department.“Some elements who tried to collect information about the recent riots and send them out of the country... were identified and arrested,” the director-general was quoted as saying. Six of them were alleged to have been at “the riots and carrying out orders,” IRNA reported, without naming the official.Two others were arrested before they could leave the country, the news agency said, and all had been “trained in different countries on how to collect information... as citizen-journalists”.Iran’s arch-foe the United States has said it received thousands of messages from the Islamic republic about the protests, including photos and videos, after issuing an appeal for people to defy sweeping internet restrictions. “We’ve received to date nearly 20,000 messages, videos, pictures, notes of the regime’s abuses through Telegram messaging services,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Tuesday, referring to the encrypted app. The unrest came after a year and a half of biting sanctions reimposed by US President Donald Trump that aim to heap “maximum pressure” on Iran and contain its regional influence.

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