Videos emerging despite internet and mobile phone blackout show demonstrations continuing despite reports of escalating crackdown. Protesters gather as vehicles burn, amid evolving anti-government unrest, in Tehran, Iran, in this screen grab obtained from a social media video released on January 9,
Iran’s authorities indicated on Saturday that they could intensify their crackdown on the biggest anti-government demonstrations in years, as the death toll rose to 65 and the Revolutionary Guards blamed the unrest on terrorists, vowing to safeguard the governing system.
Major Iranian cities were gripped overnight by new mass rallies denouncing the Islamic Republic, as activists on expressed fear that authorities were intensifying their suppression of the demonstrations under the cover of an internet blackout.
The two weeks of protests have posed one of the biggest challenges to the Iranian authorities, although Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has expressed defiance and blamed the United States.
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Following the movement’s largest protests yet on Thursday, new demonstrations took place late Friday, according to images verified by AFP and other videos published on social media.
Seize city centres’
In Tehran’s Saadatabad district, people banged pots and chanted anti-government slogans as cars honked in support, a video verified by AFP showed.
Other images disseminated on social media and by Persian-language television channels outside Iran showed similarly large protests elsewhere in the capital, as well as in the eastern city of Mashhad, Tabriz in the north and the holy city of Qom.
In the western city of Hamedan, a man was shown waving a Shah-era Iranian flag featuring the lion and the sun amid fires and people dancing.
In the Pounak district of northern Iran, people were shown dancing round a fire in the middle of a highway. It was not possible to immediately verify the videos.
Reza Pahlavi, the US-based son of Iran’s ousted Shah, hailed the “magnificent” turnout on Friday and urged Iranians to stage more targeted protests on Saturday and Sunday.Pahlavi, whose father Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was ousted by the 1979 revolution and died in 1980, added he was also “preparing to return to my homeland” at a time that he believed was “very near”.
Authorities say several members of the security forces have been killed, and Khamenei, in a defiant speech on Friday, lashed out at “vandals” and accused the United States of instigating the protests.
State TV on Saturday broadcast images of funerals for several members of the security forces killed in the protests, including a large gathering in the southern city of Shiraz.
Iran’s army said in a statement that it would “vigorously protect and safeguard national interests” against an “enemy seeking to disrupt order and peace”.
National security council chief Ali Larijani said in comments broadcast late Friday that “we are in the middle of a war”, with “these incidents being directed from outside”.
US President Donald Trump again refused on Friday to rule out new military action against Iran after Washington backed and joined Israel’s 12-day war against the Islamic Republic in June.
“Iran’s in big trouble. It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible just a few weeks ago,” Trump said.Pahlavi, whose father Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was ousted by the 1979 revolution and died in 1980, added he was also “preparing to return to my homeland” at a time that he believed was “very near”.
Authorities say several members of the security forces have been killed, and Khamenei, in a defiant speech on Friday, lashed out at “vandals” and accused the United States of instigating the protests.
State TV on Saturday broadcast images of funerals for several members of the security forces killed in the protests, including a large gathering in the southern city of Shiraz.
Iran’s army said in a statement that it would “vigorously protect and safeguard national interests” against an “enemy seeking to disrupt order and peace”.
National security council chief Ali Larijani said in comments broadcast late Friday that “we are in the middle of a war”, with “these incidents being directed from outside”.
US President Donald Trump again refused on Friday to rule out new military action against Iran after Washington backed and joined Israel’s 12-day war against the Islamic Republic in June.
“Iran’s in big trouble. It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible just a few weeks ago,” Trump said.
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