Iran demonstrations against regime continue as ayatollah, state media rail against ‘terrorist agents’

Iran signalled Friday that security forces would crack down on protesters, directly challenging U.S. President Donald Trump’s pledge to support those peacefully demonstrating as the death toll rose to at least 62.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed Trump as having hands “stained with the blood of Iranians” as his supporters shouted “Death to America!” in footage aired by Iranian state television. State media later repeatedly referred to demonstrators as “terrorists,” potentially setting the stage for a violent crackdown like those that followed other nationwide protests in recent years.

Protesters are “ruining their own streets … in order to please the president of the United States,” Khamenei said Friday to a crowd at his compound in Tehran. “Because he said that he would come to their aid. He should pay attention to the state of his own country instead.”

Iran’s judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei separately vowed that punishment for protesters “will be decisive, maximum and without any legal leniency.”

The state TV acknowledgment Friday morning represented the first official word about the demonstrations that began Dec. 28.

Dozens killed so far, rights groups say

The internet blackout has sharply reduced the amount of information flowing out of the country. Phone calls into Iran were not getting through. At least 17 flights between Dubai and Iran ⁠were cancelled, Dubai Airport’s website showed.

Still, despite Iran’s theocracy cutting off the nation, 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 into Friday.

The protests also represented a test of whether the Iranian public could be swayed by Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the late ruling shah who 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.

So far, violence around the demonstrations has killed at least 62 people while more than 2,300 others have been detained, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.

Pahlavi called for demonstrations at 8 p.m. local time Friday, after having done so for Thursday evening.

On Friday, Pahlavi called on Trump to help the protesters, saying Khamenei “wants to use this blackout to murder these young heroes.”

“You have proven and I know you are a man of peace and a man of your word,” he said in a statement. “Please be prepared to intervene to help the people of Iran.”

Pahlavi the previous night called for European leaders to join Trump in promising to “hold the regime to account.”

“Do not let the voices of my courageous compatriots be silenced,” he said.

The European Union and Germany on Friday condemned the violence targeting demonstrators as new protests were reported in Zahedan in Iran’s restive southwestern Sistan and Baluchestan province.

Not the time to meet Pahlavi, Trump says

Pahlavi had said he would offer further plans, depending on the response to his call.

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. Pahlavi has been criticized for ties to Israel.

Iran has faced rounds of country-wide protests in recent years, most notably over women’s rights following the September 2022 death of Mahsa Amini while she was in police custody. As sanctions tightened and Iran struggled after the 12-day war, its rial currency collapsed in December, reaching 1.4 million to $1 US. 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 radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt aired Thursday, Trump reiterated his pledge.

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 a separate interview with Fox News, Trump went as far as to suggest Ayatollah Khamenei may be looking to leave Iran.

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