Parisa Hafezi
DUBAI, Jan 9 (Reuters) – Iranian authorities blocked the internet on Friday to curb growing protests, leaving Iran largely cut off from the outside world, with phone calls unable to reach the country, flights canceled and Iranian online news sites only intermittently updated.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused protesters of acting on behalf of US President Donald Trump, saying rioters were attacking public property and warning Tehran would not tolerate those acting as “foreign mercenaries”.
The protests, which began amid an inflationary spiral, have not yet reached the scale of the unrest three years ago but have spread across Iran, with dozens of deaths reported and the authorities looking even more vulnerable due to dire economic conditions and the fallout from last year’s war with Israel and the United States.
Images of Iranian city fires
Iranian human rights group Hengaw reported that a protest march held after Friday prayers in Zahedan, where the Baluch minority is majority, was shot at, leaving many injured.
Iran’s fractured external opposition called for more protests on Friday, with Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the late ruling king, telling Iranians in a social media post: “The eyes of the world are on you. Take to the streets.”
Trump, who bombed Iran last summer and warned last week that Tehran might send aid to protesters, said on Friday he would not meet with Pahlavi and was “not sure it would be appropriate to support him.”
Images released by state television overnight showed burning buses, cars and motorcycles, as well as fires at subway stations and banks. It accuses the Popular Mujahideen, an opposition group that splintered after the 1979 Islamic revolution and is also known as the MKO, of orchestrating the unrest.
“It looks like a war zone – all the shops have been destroyed,” a state television reporter said, standing in front of the fire on Shariati Street in the Rashtri sea port.
Reuters confirmed that video taken in the capital Tehran showed hundreds of people marching. In one of the videos, a woman can be heard shouting: “Death to Khamenei!”
Iran has previously quelled larger unrest but now faces a tougher economic situation and growing international pressure since September when global sanctions were reimposed over its controversial nuclear program.
Top leader warns protesters
The authorities have tried a two-pronged approach – portraying protests against the economy as legitimate while condemning what they called violent rioters and using security forces to crack down.
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bakr Qalibaf told lawmakers that protesters’ voices must be heard but that any cases linked to “foreign spy networks” would have to be handled differently.
Iran’s supreme leader, the supreme authority above the democratically elected president and parliament, used stronger language in his speech on Friday.
“The Islamic Republic came to power through the blood of hundreds of thousands of honorable people. It will not back down in the face of acts of destruction,” he said, accusing those involved in the riots of trying to please Trump.
While the initial protests focused on the economy, with the rial losing half its value against the dollar last year and inflation reaching 40% in December, the protests have evolved to include slogans directed against the authorities.
Protesters chanted slogans including “Death to the dictator” and praised the former monarchy, which was overthrown in 1979. There is controversy over the level of support within Iran for the monarchy or the MKO, the most outspoken group among Iranian immigrants.
Most of the demonstrators seen in videos reviewed by Reuters, many of which could not be verified, were young.
Iran blocked the Internet overnight. A Reuters reporter attempted to call Iran from abroad on Friday but was unsuccessful.
The Dubai Airports website showed that at least six flights scheduled for Friday between Dubai and the Iranian city were cancelled.
(Reporting by Parisa Hafezi and Dubai Newsroom; Additional reporting by Vinaya K and Marine Delrue; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
