Sun 09 October 2022:
Digital activists who support Iran’s wave of female-led protests have hacked a state television live news broadcast and replaced the face of the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with crosshairs and flames.
“The blood of our youths is on your hands,” read a message on screen in the broadcast that started 9pm local time Saturday, as protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, again rocked Tehran and other cities.
The Edalat-e Ali (Ali’s Justice) hacktivist group claimed responsibility for the hack, which prevented footage of Khamenei meeting state officials and added the message “Join us and rise up” to the top right-hand corner of the screen.
For a few seconds, black-and-white pictures of Amini and three other women killed during the more than three weeks of unrest and crackdown by state security forces were also shown to Iranian viewers.
The hackers also added a message that said, “It’s time to collect your furniture from Pasteur Street and find another place for your family outside Iran,” urging Khamenei to leave his Tehran office and leave the country.
Amini’s death on September 16, three days after her arrest by morality police in Tehran for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code for women, sparked outrage.
Persian media outlets and rights organizations operating outside of Iran widely publicized the hack and posted the video on social media.
The Islamic Republic’s Tasnim news agency confirmed that the evening news broadcast “was hacked for a few moments by anti-revolutionary agents”.
The news anchor can be seen shifting uncomfortably in videos that have been posted online after the clip ends. His squirming reaction has since become a popular meme on social media, despite recent internet censorship.
The Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights says that more than 90 protesters have been killed by the security forces as the protests enter their fourth week, while other groups have placed death figures at 160 or more, with hundreds more injured and thousands arrested.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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