Internet access and telephone lines in Iran were cut out immediately after protesters took to the steets in Tehran on Thursday night, January 8, over economic conditions in the country.
People in Iran’s capital shouted from their homes and rallied in the street after a call by the country’s exiled crown prince for a mass demonstration, witnesses said, a new escalation in the protests that have spread nationwide across the Islamic Republic.
The protest 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 fuelling the protests that began over Iran’s ailing economy.
Thursday saw a continuation of the demonstrations that popped up in cities and rural towns across Iran on Wednesday, January 7. More markets and bazaars shut down in support of the protesters. So far, violence around the demonstrations has killed at least 39 people while more than 2,260 others have been detained, said the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.
The growth of the protests increases the pressure on Iran’s civilian government and its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Test for crown prince
Meanwhile, the protests themselves have remained broadly leaderless, though a call for protests by Iran’s exiled crown prince will test whether or not demonstrators are being swayed by messages from abroad.
“The lack of a viable alternative has undermined past protests in Iran,” wrote Nate Swanson of the Washington-based Atlantic Council, who studies Iran.
“There may be a thousand Iranian dissident activists who, given a chance, could emerge as respected statesmen, as labour leader Lech Walesa did in Poland at the end of the Cold War. But so far, the Iranian security apparatus has arrested, persecuted and exiled all of the country’s potential transformational leaders.”
Pahlavi had called for demonstrations at 8 pm local (1630 GMT) on Thursday and Friday, January 8 and 9. When the clock struck, neighbourhoods across Tehran erupted in chanting, witnesses said. The chants included “Death to the dictator!” and “Death to the Islamic Republic!” Others praised the shah, shouting: “This is the last battle! Pahlavi will return!” Thousands could be seen on the streets.
“Great nation of Iran, the eyes of the world are upon you. Take to the streets and, as a united front, shout your demands,” Pahlavi said in a statement. “I warn the Islamic Republic, its leader and the (Revolutionary Guard) that the world and (President Donald Trump) are closely watching you. Suppression of the people will not go unanswered.”
Pahlavi had said he would offer further plans depending on the response to his call. His support of and from Israel has drawn criticism in the past – particularly after the 12-day war Israel waged on Iran in June.
Demonstrators have shouted in support of the shah in some demonstrations, but it isn’t clear whether that’s support for Pahlavi himself or a desire to return to a time before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Iranian officials appeared to be taking the planned protests seriously. The hard-line Kayhan newspaper published a video online claiming security forces would use drones to identify those taking part.
Iranian officials have offered no acknowledgment of the scale of the overall protests, which raged across many locations Thursday, January 8, even before the 8 pm demonstration. However, there has been reporting regarding security officials being hurt or killed.
The judiciary’s Mizan news agency report a police colonel suffered fatal stab wounds in a town outside of Tehran, while the semiofficial Fars news agency said gunmen killed two security force members and wounded 30 others in a shooting in the city of Lordegan in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province.
A deputy governor in Iran’s Khorasan Razavi province told Iranian state television that an attack at a police station killed five people on Wednesday night, January 7, in Chenaran, some 700 kilometers northeast of Tehran.
Iran weighs Trump threat
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.”
Trump’s comments drew a new rebuke from Iran’s Foreign Ministry. “Recalling the long history of criminal interventions by successive US administrations in Iran’s internal affairs, the Foreign Ministry considers claims of concern for the great Iranian nation to be hypocritical, aimed at deceiving public opinion and covering up the numerous crimes committed against Iranians,” it said.
But those comments haven’t stopped the US State Department on social platform X from highlighting online footage purporting to show demonstrators putting up stickers naming roads after Trump or throwing away government-subsidised rice.
History of protests
Iran has faced rounds of nationwide protests in recent years. As sanctions tightened and Iran struggled after a 12-day war with Israel in June, its rial currency collapsed in December, reaching 1.4 million to USD 1. Protests began soon after, with demonstrators chanting against Iran’s theocracy.
Prior to Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, the rial was broadly stable, trading at around 70 to USD 1. At the time of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, USD 1 traded for 32,000 rials. Shops in markets across the country have shut down as part of the protests.
