Iran protests: Khamenei urges unity as unrest tests the clerical rule
Reuters reported that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said some “rioters” were trying to please the US president by damaging public property and told Donald Trump to focus on the problems in his own country.
Protesters defying Iran’s theocratic rulers took to the streets in the early hours of Friday, chanting slogans and marching, after the country’s exiled crown prince called for demonstrations, even as authorities cut off internet access and international phone lines across the country.
On Thursday evening, crowds filled the streets chanting slogans against the ruling clerics and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The outburst came just hours after Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last ruler, called for nationwide protests, urging Iranians to raise their voices in the streets, from rooftops and even from inside their homes.
The demonstrations were the first real test of Pahlavi’s ability to mobilize public anger, decades after his father, who was seriously ill at the time, fled Iran on the eve of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
