Iran Confronts 3rd Day of Protests, With Calls for Khamenei to Quit
- 6 years ago
Iran Confronts 3rd Day of Protests, With Calls for Khamenei to Quit
The Revolutionary Guards, which along with its Basij militia spearheaded a crackdown against protesters in 2009, said in a statement carried by state news media on Saturday
that efforts were underway to replicate that unrest, and that Iran "will not allow the country to be hurt." Later in the evening, the police fired tear gas to disperse crowds protesting at Tehran’s central Vali-e Asr Square, a witness said.
#IranProtests A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bahram Qassemi, condemned the statement by the president, and another by the State Department supporting the protesters, as "meddlesome" and "opportunistic." In a rare move, state television broadcast images of the protests on Saturday, acknowledging
that some people were chanting the name of Iran’s one-time shah, who fled into exile before its 1979 Islamic Revolution.
When the unauthorized protests began on Thursday in Mashhad, a city of two million in the northeast, some protesters shouted, "Death to Rouhani." Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri, a reformist ally of the president, said
that hard-line conservative opponents of Mr. Rouhani might have galvanized the first protests but lost control of them.
But the pro-government rallies, planned for 1,200 cities
and towns, according to the state media, were overshadowed in intensity by Iranians in Tehran shouting, "Death to the dictator" and "Clerics should get lost," witnesses said.
As some social media users called for more antigovernment rallies in Tehran
and other cities later Saturday, demonstrations broke out in cities like Karaj and Zanjan, where a crowd tore down a billboard with a portrait of Mr. Khamenei.
Video shared on social media on Saturday showed Iranians directly calling for Mr. Khamenei to step down,
and also chanting, "Referendum, referendum, this is the slogan of the people." (After the 1979 revolution, the Islamic Republic was established with a referendum.)
The Revolutionary Guards, which along with its Basij militia spearheaded a crackdown against protesters in 2009, said in a statement carried by state news media on Saturday
that efforts were underway to replicate that unrest, and that Iran "will not allow the country to be hurt." Later in the evening, the police fired tear gas to disperse crowds protesting at Tehran’s central Vali-e Asr Square, a witness said.
#IranProtests A spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bahram Qassemi, condemned the statement by the president, and another by the State Department supporting the protesters, as "meddlesome" and "opportunistic." In a rare move, state television broadcast images of the protests on Saturday, acknowledging
that some people were chanting the name of Iran’s one-time shah, who fled into exile before its 1979 Islamic Revolution.
When the unauthorized protests began on Thursday in Mashhad, a city of two million in the northeast, some protesters shouted, "Death to Rouhani." Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri, a reformist ally of the president, said
that hard-line conservative opponents of Mr. Rouhani might have galvanized the first protests but lost control of them.
But the pro-government rallies, planned for 1,200 cities
and towns, according to the state media, were overshadowed in intensity by Iranians in Tehran shouting, "Death to the dictator" and "Clerics should get lost," witnesses said.
As some social media users called for more antigovernment rallies in Tehran
and other cities later Saturday, demonstrations broke out in cities like Karaj and Zanjan, where a crowd tore down a billboard with a portrait of Mr. Khamenei.
Video shared on social media on Saturday showed Iranians directly calling for Mr. Khamenei to step down,
and also chanting, "Referendum, referendum, this is the slogan of the people." (After the 1979 revolution, the Islamic Republic was established with a referendum.)