One person was killed and others injured in protests that spread across Iran on Saturday after a surprise decision to impose petrol price hikes and rationing in the sanctions-hit country.

The death occurred on Friday in the central city of Sirjan, where protesters had tried to set a fuel depot ablaze but were thwarted by security forces, semi-official ISNA news agency reported.

Protests erupted hours after it was announced the price of petrol would be increased by 50 per cent for the first 60l and 300 per cent for anything above that each month.

Sirjan’s acting governor Mohammad Mahmoudabadi said a civilian was killed but it was unclear if he had been “shot or not”.

“Security forces did not have permission to shoot and were only allowed to fire warning shots . . . which they did,” ISNA quoted him as saying.

He said some people “destroyed public property, damaged fuel stations and also wanted to access the oil company’s main fuel depots and set fire to them”.

‘Few disruptors’

Protests were also held on Friday in other cities including Abadan, Ahvaz, Bandar Abbas, Birjand, Gachsaran, Khoramshahr, Mahshahr, Mashhad and Shiraz, state news agency IRNA said.

In Ahvaz, “rioters” torched a bank, and in Khoramshahr, “suspicious and unknown armed individuals” opened fire and injured a number of people, state television’s website said.

In other cities, protests were mostly limited to blocking traffic and were over by midnight, it added.

Police fired tear gas at protesters in some cities, state television said.

It accused “hostile media” of trying to use fake news and videos on social media to exaggerate protests as “large and extensive”.

Prosecutor-Mohammad Jafar Montazeri laid the blame for incidents on a “few disruptors” whose actions showed they opposed the system.

Netblocks, an internet monitoring website, said late on Saturday the country was in the grip of an internet shutdown.

“Confirmed: Iran is now in the midst of a near-total national internet shutdown; realtime network data shows connectivity at seven per cent of ordinary levels after 12 hours of progressive network disconnections,” it said on Twitter.

Fresh demonstrations were held on Saturday in the cities of Doroud, Garmsar, Gorgan, Ilam, Karaj, Khoramabad, Mehdishahr, Qazvin, Qom, Sanandaj, Shahroud and Shiraz, IRNA said.

“Some drivers have protested the new petrol price by turning off their cars and creating traffic jams.”

In Tehran, protesters were seen blocking a road, while elsewhere in the capital demonstrators gathered around a burning vehicle.

Similar scenes were witnessed in the central cities of Shiraz and Isfahan.

The pump price hike is expected to generate 300 trillion rials ($2.55 billion) per annum and help needy citizens, authorities said.

Around 60 million Iranians would receive payments ranging from 550,000 rials ($4.68) for couples, to slightly more than two million rials ($17.46) for families of five or more.

Under the scheme, drivers with fuel cards would pay 15,000 rials (13 US cents) a litre for the first 60l of petrol bought each month, with each additional litre costing 30,000 rials.

Sanctions

Fuel cards were first introduced in 2007 with a view to reforming the subsidies system and curbing large-scale smuggling.

Iran’s economy has been battered since May last year when US President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the US from a 2015 nuclear agreement and reimposed crippling sanctions.

The Iranian rial has plummeted, inflation is running at more than 40 per cent and the International Monetary Fund expects Iran’s economy to contract by nine per cent this year and stagnate in 2020.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said 75 per cent of Iranians were “under pressure” and the extra petrol revenues would go to them.

Rouhani had tried to hike fuel prices in December but was blocked by parliament after similar protests that rocked Iran for days.

The scheme comes at as Iran prepares for a February parliamentary election.