Iranian protesters shouted and marched through the streets into Friday morning after a call by the country’s exiled crown prince for demonstrations, despite Iran’s theocracy cutting off the nation from the internet and international telephone calls.
Axar.az informs, citing Associated Press, 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.
Iranian state media broke its silence Friday over the protests, alleging “terrorist agents” of the US and Israel set fires and sparked violence. It also said there were “casualties,” without elaborating.
The protests also 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 fueling the protests that began over Iran’s ailing economy.
So far, violence around the demonstrations has killed at least 42 people while more than 2,270 others have been detained, said the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.
Pahlavi, who called for protests Thursday night, similarly has called for demonstrations at 8 p.m. Friday.