THE IRANIAN government has unleashed a militarised clampdown on the country to hide its massacre of protesters, Amnesty International warned today.

Since the nationwide anti-government protests began earlier this month, the authorities have committed mass unlawful killings to crush the popular uprising, the human rights organisation said today.

The nationwide repression has involved a complete internet blackout, heavily armed security patrols, night-time curfews and the prevention of any gatherings, it said.

Security forces have arrested thousands of protesters, and subjected detainees to enforced disappearance, torture and other ill‑treatment, including sexual violence.

The authorities have also harassed and intimidated bereaved families of killed protesters.

“While people in Iran are still reeling from the grief and shock of the unprecedented massacres during protest dispersals, the Iranian authorities are waging a co-ordinated attack on the rights of people in Iran to life, dignity and fundamental freedoms in a criminal bid to terrorise the population into silence,” said Diana Eltahawy, deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.

“Through the ongoing internet shutdown, the authorities are deliberately isolating over 90 million people from the rest of the world to conceal their crimes and evade accountability.”

The US-based organisation Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) has put the death toll from the crackdown at 5,002.

It said 4,716 of the dead were demonstrators, 203 were government-affiliated, 43 were children and 40 were civilians not taking part in the protests. It added that more than 26,800 people had been detained in a widening arrest campaign by authorities.

Meanwhile, today, Iran’s top prosecutor called US President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that he halted the hangings of 800 detained protesters there “completely false.”

Tensions remain high between the two countries as a US aircraft carrier group moves closer to the Middle East, something Mr Trump likened to an “armada” in comments to journalists late on Thursday.