Protests sweep Iran despite internet shutdown as state TV warns of casualties

Iranian protesters shouted and marched through the streets into Friday morning after a call by the country’s exiled crown prince for demonstrations, despite Iran’s theocracy cutting off the nation from the internet and international telephone calls.

Short online videos shared by activists purported to show protesters chanting against Iran’s government around bonfires as debris littered the streets in the capital, Tehran, and other areas. Iranian state media broke its silence Friday over the protests, alleging “terrorist agents” of the US and Israel set fires and sparked violence. It also said there were “casualties,” without elaborating.

Iran’s 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a brief address aired by state television, signaled authorities would crack down on demonstrators as an audience shouted: “Death to America!”

Protesters are “ruining their own streets to make the president of another country happy,” Khamenei said, referring to US President Donald Trump.

The full scope of the demonstrations couldn’t be immediately determined due to the communications blackout, though it represented yet another escalation in protests that began over Iran’s ailing economy and that has morphed into the most significant challenge to the government in several years. The protests have intensified steadily since beginning Dec. 28.

The protests also represented the first test of whether the Iranian public could be swayed by Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, whose fatally ill father fled Iran just before the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. Demonstrations have included cries in support of the shah, something that could bring a death sentence in the past but now underlines the anger fueling the protests that began over Iran’s ailing economy.

So far, violence around the demonstrations has killed at least 42 people while more than 2,270 others have been detained, said the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.

Pahlavi, who called for protests Thursday night, similarly has called for demonstrations at 8pm Friday.

“What turned the tide of the protests was former Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi’s calls for Iranians to take to the streets at 8pm on Thursday and Friday,” said Holly Dagres, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Per social media posts, it became clear that Iranians had delivered and were taking the call seriously to protest in order to oust the Islamic Republic.”

“This is exactly why the internet was shut down: to prevent the world from seeing the protests. Unfortunately, it also likely provided cover for security forces to kill protesters.”

When the clock struck 8pm Thursday, neighbourhoods across Tehran erupted in chanting, witnesses said. Thousands could be seen on the streets before all communication to Iran cut out.

The internet cut also appears to have taken Iran’s state-run and semiofficial news agencies offline as well. The state TV acknowledgment at 8am Friday represented the first official word about the demonstrations.

State TV claimed the protests saw violence that caused casualties but did not elaborate. It also said the protests saw “people’s private cars, motorcycles, public places such as the metro, fire trucks and buses set on fire.”

Iran has faced rounds of nationwide protests in recent years. As sanctions tightened and Iran struggled after the 12-day war, its rial currency collapsed in December, reaching 1.4 million to $1. Protests began soon after, with demonstrators chanting against Iran’s theocracy.

It remains unclear why Iranian officials have yet to crack down harder on the demonstrators. Trump warned last week that if Tehran “violently kills peaceful protesters,” America “will come to their rescue.”

In an interview with talk show host Hugh Hewitt aired Thursday, Trump reiterated his pledge.

Iran has “been told very strongly, even more strongly than I’m speaking to you right now, that if they do that, they’re going to have to pay hell,” Trump said.

Trump demurred when asked if he’d meet with Pahlavi.

“I’m not sure that it would be appropriate at this point to do that as president,” Trump said. “I think that we should let everybody go out there, and we see who emerges.”

Speaking in an interview with Sean Hannity aired Thursday night on Fox News, Trump went as far as to suggest 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei may be looking to leave Iran.

“He’s looking to go someplace,” Trump said. “It’s getting very bad.”