Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has dismissed nationwide protests as acts of sabotage and vowed the Islamic republic will not retreat, as authorities tightened a near-total internet shutdown during a crackdown that rights groups say has left at least 51 people dead.
The unrest, now in its thirteenth day, has spread across major cities and towns, fuelled initially by anger over rising living costs but increasingly marked by calls for the end of Iran’s clerical system.
Late on Thursday, large crowds marched through Tehran in what observers described as the biggest demonstrations since protests erupted in 2022 following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini.
Internet monitoring group Netblocks said Iran had imposed a “nationwide internet shutdown” for more than 24 hours, warning that the blackout was “masking regime violence” and violating the rights of citizens.
Amnesty International said the “blanket internet shutdown” was designed to “hide the true extent of the grave human rights violations and crimes under international law they are carrying out to crush” the protests.
Norway-based group Iran Human Rights said at least 51 protesters, including nine children under the age of 18, had been killed by security forces, raising an earlier toll of 45. Hundreds more have reportedly been injured.
In his first public comments since January 3, Khamenei adopted a defiant tone, describing demonstrators as “vandals” and “saboteurs” in a speech broadcast on state television.
“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,” he said, as supporters chanted “death to America”.
Khamenei accused US President Donald Trump of having hands “stained with the blood of more than a thousand Iranians”, an apparent reference to Israel’s June war with Iran, which Washington supported and joined with its own strikes.
He predicted the “arrogant” US leader would be “overthrown” like the shah who was ousted in 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,” Khamenei said.
Trump, speaking in a Fox News interview late Thursday, said “enthusiasm to overturn that regime is incredible” and warned Tehran against killing protesters.
“If they do, we’re going to hit them very hard. We’re ready to do it,” he said, adding that the 86-year-old supreme leader “may be looking to leave Iran”.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused the United States and Israel of “directly intervening” to turn “peaceful protests into divisive and violent ones”, while judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei warned that punishment of “rioters” would be “decisive, the maximum and without any legal leniency”.
State television reported that a district prosecutor in Esfarayen and several security personnel were killed during protests on Thursday night.
The intelligence arm of the Revolutionary Guards said the “continuation of this situation is unacceptable”, describing protection of the revolution as its “red line”.
At the same time, Iranian state media broadcast images of counter-protests in support of the authorities in several cities. However, rights group Haalvsh said security forces fired on protesters in Zahedan, in the southeast, after Friday prayers, causing casualties.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said security forces have since December 28 “unlawfully used rifles, shotguns loaded with metal pellets, water cannon, tear gas and beatings to disperse, intimidate and punish largely peaceful protesters”, as the internet blackout continues to limit the flow of information from the country.
