Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, on Friday vowed the Islamic Republic would not back down in the face of the biggest protests in years, as authorities pressed 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 revolution that ousted the pro-Western shah.
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".
Casualties rising
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.
The demonstrations represent one of the biggest challenges yet to the Islamic Republic in its over four-and-a-half decades of existence.
The protests late Thursday were the biggest in Iran since 2022-2023 rallies nationwide, sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini after she was arrested for allegedly violating the Republic's strict dress code.
“Vandals and saboteurs”
However, Khamenei struck a defiant tone 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 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."
Threats by US President Trump
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."
In the Fox News interview, Trump went as far as to suggest 86-year-old Khamenei may be looking to leave Iran.
"He's looking to go someplace," he said.
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".
US-based Pahlavi calls on Trump to intervene
The exiled son of Iran's late shah on Friday appealed to US President Donald Trump to intervene urgently as protests persisted in the Islamic republic.
"Mr. President, this is an urgent and immediate call for your attention, support and action," Reza Pahlavi wrote on social media. "Please be prepared to intervene to help the people of Iran."
Pahlavi, who lives in the Washington area, did not specify the intervention he was seeking but pointed both to an internet blackout and the threat of the use of force against protesters.
"I have called the people to the streets to fight for their freedom and to overwhelm the security forces with sheer numbers. Last night they did that," he wrote.
“Maximum punishment for protestors”
Judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei warned that punishment of "rioters" would be "decisive, the maximum and without any legal leniency".
Quoted by state television, he said a district prosecutor in the town of Esfarayen in eastern Iran and several members of the security forces had been killed late Thursday in the protests.
The intelligence branch of the Revolutionary Guards, the security force entrusted with ensuring the preservation of the Republic, said the "continuation of this situation is unacceptable" and protecting the revolution was its "red line".
