[🇮🇷] Protests in Iran

Afhan · Monday at 1:33 AM

Saif said:
Defiant Khamenei insists 'won't back down' in face of Iran protests
AFP Paris
Published: 09 Jan 2026, 17: 26

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A handout picture provided by the office of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei shows him addressing a meeting with local champions and medalists of sports and world science awards in Tehran on 20 October, 2025. AFP

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Friday insisted that the Islamic republic would "not back down" in the face of protests after the biggest rallies yet in an almost two week movement sparked by anger over the rising cost of living.

Chanting slogans including "death to the dictator" and setting fire to official buildings, crowds of people opposed to the clerical establishment marched through major cities late Thursday.

Internet monitor Netblocks said authorities had imposed a total connectivity blackout late Thursday and added early Friday that the country has "now been offline for 12 hours... in an attempt to suppress sweeping protests".

The demonstrations represent one of the biggest challenges yet to the Islamic republic in its over four-and-a half decades of existence, with protesters openly calling for an end to its theocratic rule.

But Khamenei struck a defiant tone in his first comments on the protests that have been escalating since 3 January, calling the demonstrators "vandals" and "saboteurs", in a speech broadcast on state TV.

Khamenei said US President Donald Trump's hands "are stained with the blood of more than a thousand Iranians", in apparent reference to Israel's June war against the Islamic republic which the US supported and joined with strikes of its own.

He predicted the "arrogant" US leader would be "overthrown" like the imperial dynasty that ruled Iran up to the 1979 revolution.

"Last night in Tehran, a bunch of vandals came and destroyed a building that belongs to them to please the US president," he said in an address to supporters, as men and women in the audience chanted the mantra of "death to America".

"Everyone knows the Islamic republic came to power with the blood of hundreds of thousands of honourable people, it will not back down in the face of saboteurs," he added.

Trump said late Thursday that "enthusiasm to overturn that regime is incredible" and warned that if the Iranian authorities responded by killing protesters, "we're going to hit them very hard. We're ready to do it."

'Even larger'

AFP has verified videos showing crowds of people, as well as vehicles honking in support, filling a part of the vast Ayatollah Kashani Boulevard late on Thursday.

The crowd could be heard chanting "death to the dictator" in reference to Khamenei, 86, who has ruled the Islamic republic since 1989.

Other videos showed significant protests in other cities, including Tabriz in the north and the holy city of Mashhad in the east, as well as the Kurdish-populated west of the country, including the regional hub Kermanshah.

Several videos showed protesters setting fire to the entrance to the regional branch of state television in the central city of Isfahan. It was not immediately possible to verify the images.

Flames were also seen in the governor's building in Shazand, the capital of Markazi province in central Iran, after protesters gathered outside, other videos showed.

The protests late Thursday were the biggest in Iran since 2022-2023 rallies nationwide sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for allegedly violating the Islamic republic's strict dress code.

Rights groups have accused authorities of firing on protesters in the current demonstrations, killing dozens. However, the latest videos from Tehran did not show intervention by security forces.

The son of the shah of Iran ousted by the 1979 Islamic Revolution, US-based Reza Pahlavi, who had called for major protests Thursday, urged a new show of force in the streets on Friday.

Pahlavi, in a new video message early Friday, said Thursday's rallies showed how "a massive crowd forces the repressive forces to retreat".

He called for bigger protests Friday "to make the crowd even larger so that the regime's repressive power becomes even weaker".

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Saif · Monday at 8:21 PM

Iran’s struggles under repression and foreign intervention

As protests in Iran show signs of waning under the weight of an increasingly brutal crackdown, Iranian officials have claimed that at least 5,000 people, including around 500 security personnel, have been killed nationwide.

www.thedailystar.net

Iran’s struggles under repression and foreign intervention

By Eresh Omar Jamal

Iranian demonstrators gather in a street during a protest over the collapse of the currency’s value, in Tehran, Iran, on January 8, 2026. PHOTO: REUTERS

As protests in Iran show signs of waning under the weight of an increasingly brutal crackdown, Iranian officials have claimed that at least 5,000 people, including around 500 security personnel, have been killed nationwide. Yet both casualty figures and arrest totals vary widely across sources, underscoring the opacity surrounding the unrest. The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), the monitoring group most widely cited by news organisations worldwide, estimates that more than 24,000 people have been arrested.

However, independent verification of these claims has become even more difficult following a near-total nationwide internet shutdown imposed on January 8, which has deepened the information blackout surrounding the protests.

In the days leading up to the shutdown, journalists and media workers inside Iran reported increasing pressure from authorities, including warnings, intimidation, and summonses, to refrain from covering events. Independent journalists faced restrictions on internet access and disruptions to mobile data—measures that had already constrained their ability to contact sources, verify developments, and publish for domestic and international audiences. Once internet access was cut entirely, even the restricted flow of information stopped.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemned the move as “a blatant assault on press freedom.” Its regional director for the Middle East and North Africa, Sara Qudah, remarked, “By cutting connectivity, authorities are preventing journalists from documenting events and isolating the country from international scrutiny.”

Yet verified videos and credible eyewitness accounts from Iran point to mass killings committed on an unprecedented scale, according to Amnesty International. Its secretary general, Agnes Callamard, stated, “The international community must take urgent diplomatic action to protect protesters from further massacres and confront the impunity driving the state’s campaign of bloodshed.”

Western leaders have strongly condemned the actions of the Iranian regime. US President Donald Trump has issued varying degrees of threats and has recently stated, “It’s time to look for new leadership in Iran.” But Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a speech on Thursday, blamed the US for the death toll and repeatedly claimed that US and Israeli agents were responsible for the unrest.

While the Iranian regime has a long history of crushing dissent independent of foreign interference, these claims may not be entirely unwarranted. For example, according to The Jerusalem Post, towards the end of December last year, the Mossad used its Farsi-language Twitter account to encourage Iranians to protest against the regime, stating that it would join them during demonstrations. The post read: “We are with you. Not only from a distance and verbally. We are with you in the field.”

Given Mossad’s deep infiltration of Iran, as demonstrated by the shocking killings of senior Iranian generals in 2025, it is not implausible that such operations continue to this day. Former CIA Director Mike Pompeo, known for his hawkish stance against Iran in particular, tweeted: “Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also, to every Mossad agent walking beside them…”

Meanwhile, Western media coverage has largely overlooked the massive rallies supporting the Iranian government, which in some cases appear to dwarf anti-regime demonstrations. This is not to suggest that the Iranian government’s violent response is justified, nor should it diminish the profound hardships and sufferings faced by the Iranian people—conditions that are widely believed to have sparked the protests on December 28.

The collapse of the Iranian rial and soaring prices initially prompted protests by shopkeepers in Tehran, before demonstrations against Iran’s clerical rulers spread nationwide. While protesters may have been mostly silenced by now, their grievances remain unresolved. And as the risk of foreign (particularly US) intervention persists, the dire economic conditions that first ignited unrest in the closing days of 2025 have only worsened.

Even so, it is widely understood that US sanctions and Western economic manoeuvring have slowly strangled Iran’s economy, one of many ways in which confrontation with Iran has advanced over the years.

Iran is surrounded by at least 45 hostile military bases on all sides. That produces an atmosphere of intense fear in which the country’s leadership perceives itself to be in a state of constant war. Historically, such conditions have often led regimes to adopt illogical methods of suppressing dissent, as seen, for example, in Britain’s imprisonment of Bertrand Russell during World War I.

The Iranian regime’s fears mean that human rights abuses within the country, which unquestionably deserve condemnation and investigation, stand little chance of resolution so long as the leadership remains convinced that invasion or total annihilation is imminent. That fear, regardless of political bias, is not without justification.

Where there are great powers at work, not just shadowy conspiracies and intelligence agencies, but enormous cultural, industrial, and corporate networks that interact, the push forcing governments towards a particular direction is enormous. This dynamic was most starkly illustrated during recent events in Venezuela, including the bombing of its capital and the abduction of its former president and his wife.

Following those events, the US president openly claimed that his country now controlled 55 percent of the world’s oil, with analysts noting that the move significantly strengthened Washington’s strategic advantage over China.

The same logic applies to Iran. Should the US succeed in achieving regime change in Iran, a goal it has pursued for decades, it would deal a significant blow to both Russia and China. It would halt China’s access to Iranian oil and, at the very least, derail China’s Belt and Road Initiative, of which Iran is one of the most important pieces. It would also help Israel achieve one of its most vehemently pursued strategic objectives.

While recent troop movements and betting market signals suggested that the US might strike Iran by the end of January, Trump’s focus on Greenland has arguably pushed Iran down the priority list. However, some analysts argue that another push against Iran is not a matter of “if” but “when.”

In any case, for the people of Iran, the most likely outlook seems to remain “lose-lose.” Whether they can achieve freedom, economic stability, and safety without the intervention of foreign “saviours,” or without being caught up in “underhanded geopolitical machinations,” remains uncertain. For now, however, it appears unlikely.

Eresh Omar Jamal is a Bangladeshi analyst currently based in Canada. Views expressed are the author’s own.