In Iran, there is no Internet and ongoing protests encouraged by the exiled prince – National
People in Iran’s capital shouted from their homes and gathered in the streets Thursday night after the country’s exiled prince called for a protest, witnesses said, the latest escalation of protests that have spread across the Islamic Republic.
Internet access and telephone lines in Iran were cut immediately after the protests began.
The protest represented the first test of whether Iranian society could be swayed by Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, whose ailing father fled Iran shortly before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The protests have included cries of support for the shah, something that would have carried the death penalty in the past but now underscores the anger fueling the protests that began over Iran’s economic stagnation.
Thursday saw a continuation of the protests that erupted in cities and towns across Iran on Wednesday. More markets and shops were closed to support the protesters. So far, the violence in the protests has killed at least 39 people while more than 2,260 others have been arrested, said the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.
The growing protests are increasing pressure on Iran’s civilian government and its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. CloudFlare, an internet company, and advocacy group NetBlocks reported the internet outage, both of which attributed it to Iranian government interference. Attempts to dial landlines and mobile phones from Dubai to Iran could not be connected. Such outages in the past have been followed by strong government pressure.
Meanwhile, the protests themselves remain leaderless. It is not clear how Pahlavi’s call will affect the protests going forward.
“The lack of an effective alternative has undermined past protests in Iran,” wrote Nate Swanson of the Washington-based Atlantic Council, which studies Iran.
“There may be thousands of Iranian opposition activists who, if given the chance, would emerge as respected statesmen, as labor leader Lech Wałęsa did in Poland at the end of the Cold War. But so far, Iran’s security forces have arrested, prosecuted and exiled all potential revolutionary leaders.”
Thursday shows
Pahlavi had called for protests at 8 pm local time (1630 GMT) on Thursday and Friday. When the clock struck, neighbors across Tehran burst into song, witnesses said. Chants included “Death to tyrants!” and “Death to the Islamic Republic!” Others praised the shah, shouting: “This is the last battle! Thousands were seen in the streets.”
“The great nation of Iran, the eyes of the world are upon you. Go to the streets and, as a united group, shout your demands,” Pahlavi said in a statement. “I warn the Islamic Republic, its leader and the (Revolutionary Guard) that the world and (President Donald Trump) are watching closely. The oppression of the people will not go unanswered.”
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Pahlavi had said that he would give other programs depending on how he responded to his call. His support for Israel has come under fire in the past – especially after the 12-day war Israel fought in Iran in June. Demonstrators have chanted in support of the shah at other demonstrations, but it is not clear whether that is support for Pahlavi himself or a desire to return to a time before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Iranian officials seem to be taking the planned protests seriously. The hard-line Kayhan newspaper published a video online saying security forces would use drones to identify those involved.
Iranian officials did not give an update on the overall scale of the protests, which erupted in many areas on Thursday and before the 8pm protest. However, there have been reports of security officials being injured or killed.
Mizan news agency reports that a police colonel was fatally wounded in a town outside Tehran, while Fars news agency says gunmen killed two members of the security forces and injured 30 others in a shooting incident that took place in the town of Lordegan in the province of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari.
The deputy governor of Iran’s Khorasan Razavi province told Iranian state television that an attack on a police station killed five people Wednesday night in Chenaran, about 700 kilometers (430 miles) northeast of Tehran.
It is not clear why Iranian officials have not been more strict with the protesters. Trump warned last week that if Tehran “brutally kills peaceful protesters,” America will “help them.”
Trump’s comments prompted a fresh rebuke from Iran’s Foreign Ministry.
“If you remember the long history of criminal intervention by successive American administrations in the internal affairs of Iran, the State Department considers the allegations of concern of the great nation of Iran as hypocritical, aimed at manipulating public opinion and hiding the many crimes committed against the Iranian people,” it said.
But those comments didn’t stop the US State Department on social media platform X from highlighting images online it said showed protesters putting up street stickers naming Trump or dumping government-sponsored rice.
“When prices are set so high that consumers can’t buy or farmers can’t sell, everyone loses,” the State Department said in a statement. “It makes no difference if this rice is thrown away.”
Meanwhile, Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi is still being held by the authorities after his arrest in December.
“From December 28, 2025, the people of Iran will take to the streets, as they did in 2009, 2019,” said his son Ali Rahmani. “Every time, the same demands came up: the end of the Islamic Republic, the end of this patriarchal, dictatorial and religious regime, the end of the clerics, the end of the mullahs’ regime.”
Massive protests since the death of Mahsa Amini
Iran has faced protests across the country in recent years. As sanctions tighten and Iran struggles after the 12-day war, its rial currency fell in December, to 1.4 billion to $1. Demonstrations began soon after, with protesters chanting against the Iranian regime.
Before the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the rial was broadly stable, trading at around 70 to $1. At the time of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, $1 was trading at 32,000 riyals. Shops in markets across the country have been closed as part of the protests.
