Country-wide protests in Iran enter third day amid international reaction

The demonstrations, which began on Thursday, started as protests against soaring prices before quickly turning political.

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region (Kurdistan 24) – Country-wide protests in Iran entered the third day as demonstrators demanded an end to government corruption.

The demonstrations, which began on Thursday, started as protests against soaring prices before quickly turning political as widespread corruption, as well as Iran’s costly interventions in Syria and Iraq, further incited public anger.

On Friday, the protests spread to Kermanshah, in the Kurdish west and included rallies in Tehran, as well as Qom, the Shia theological center that played a crucial role in the 1979 Iranian revolution.

Videos shared on social media show Iranians chanting slogans opposing President Hassan Rouhani and the country’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

In Kermanshah, which suffered a devastating 7.3-magnitude earthquake last month, videos showed police attacking protestors with batons.

On Saturday, protests carried into the third day as demonstrators in the city of Abhar in the Zanjan Province, western Tehran, tore down a poster of Khamenei.

Protestors in Mashhad, which saw the largest demonstrations on Friday with 52 people arrested, burned police cars and motorcycles.

Saturday’s protests came after the Iranian government warned citizens against holding what it labeled “illegal public gatherings.”

Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said any groups who wanted to demonstrate had to file an official request first and be granted permission.

“The police and security forces have tried to manage conditions,” he said. “We have received reports of calls to gather, cyber and social media based, and such calls and any gatherings resulting therefrom, are certainly illegal.”

Anti-government demonstrations in Iran continued, becoming country-wide protests. (Photo: Archive)
Anti-government demonstrations in Iran continued, becoming country-wide protests. (Photo: Archive)

Meanwhile, United States President Donald Trump told Iran that “the world is watching” the anti-government protests in the country.

“Many reports of peaceful protests by Iranian citizens fed up with [the] regime’s corruption & its squandering of the nation’s wealth to fund terrorism abroad,” Trump wrote on Twitter, adding the Iranian government should “respect people’s rights.”