Iranians took to the streets in new protests on Friday, January 9, to press the biggest movement against the Islamic Republic in over three years, as authorities sustained an internet blackout as part of a crackdown that has left dozens dead. Protests have taken place across Iran for 13 days in a movement sparked by anger over the rising cost of living that is now marked by calls for the end of the clerical system that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution which ousted the pro-Western shah.
In Tehran’s Sadatabad district, people banged pots and chanted anti-government slogans including “death to Khamenei,” in reference to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as cars hooted in support, a video verified by Agence France-Presse (AFP) showed.
These protests followed giant demonstrations on Thursday that were the biggest in Iran since the 2022-2023 protest movement sparked by the custody death of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for allegedly violating the dress rules for women.
The new rallies came as internet monitor Netblocks said authorities had now imposed a “nationwide internet shutdown” for the last 24 hours that was violating the rights of Iranians and “masking regime violence.”
In a separate statement, Amnesty International said the “blanket internet shutdown” aims to “hide the true extent of the grave human rights violations and crimes under international law they are carrying out to crush” the protests.
Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights, raising a previous toll of 45 issued the day earlier, said at least 51 protesters, including nine children under the age of 18, have been killed by security forces and hundreds more injured.
‘Stained with blood’
Khamenei struck a defiant tone on Friday in his first comments on the escalating protests since January 3, 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 an apparent reference to Israel’s June war against Iran, 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.
Earlier on Friday, Trump said it looked like the Iranian leaders were “in big trouble” and reiterated his warning that he could order military strikes
“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. Asked on his message to Iran’s leaders, Trump added: “You better not start shooting because we’ll start shooting too.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on a visit to Lebanon on Friday accused Washington and Israel of “directly intervening” to try to “transform the peaceful protests into divisive and violent ones,” which a US State Department spokesperson called “delusional.”
‘Red line’
The son of the shah of Iran ousted by the 1979 Islamic Revolution, US-based Reza Pahlavi, urged Trump to intervene to help the protesters, adding “the people will be on the streets again in an hour.” But judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei warned that punishment of “rioters” would be “decisive, the maximum and without any legal leniency.”
The intelligence branch of the Revolutionary Guards, the security force entrusted with ensuring the preservation of the Islamic republic, said the “continuation of this situation is unacceptable” and protecting the revolution was its “red line.”
The leaders of France, the United Kingdom and Germany on Friday issued a joint statement condemning what they described as the “killing of protestors” in Iran, urging the authorities to “exercise restraint.”
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said in a joint statement that since the start of the protests on December 28, security forces “have unlawfully used rifles, shotguns loaded with metal pellets, water cannon, tear gas and beatings to disperse, intimidate and punish largely peaceful protesters.”