People gathered in the streets of Tehran on Thursday night, witnesses said, marking a new escalation in the ongoing protests in Iran after exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi called for a mass demonstration. Internet access and telephone lines in Iran were cut immediately after the protests began.
The protests represented the first test of whether Iranian society could be swayed by Pahlavi, whose terminally ill father, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, fled the country shortly before the 1979 Islamic Revolution and died in exile in 1980.
The protests have included chants in support of 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 faltering economy.
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 protests.
So far, 41 people have been killed in the violence surrounding the protests, and more than 2,270 others have been arrested, according to 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, given the opportunity, 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’s shows will be at home and on the road
“The great nation of Iran, the eyes of the world are upon you. Take 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] they are watching you. People’s oppression will not go unanswered. “
Pahlavi had called for protests at 8 pm local time on Thursday and Friday. When the clock struck, neighbors across Tehran burst into song, witnesses said.
Chants included “Death to the tyrant!” and “Death to the Islamic Republic!” Others praised the shah, shouting: “This is the last battle! The Pahlavi will return!” Thousands were seen on the streets.
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 shouted support for the shah in other protests, 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 appeared to take 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 Lordegan city in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province.
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 northeast of Tehran.
Late Thursday, the Revolutionary Guard said two of its members were killed in Kermanshah.
Iran measures Trump’s threat
Iran has faced protests across the country in recent years. As sanctions tighten and Iran struggles following the 12-day war, its rial currency collapsed in December, with $1 now worth 1.4 million rials. Demonstrations began soon after, with protesters chanting against the Iranian regime.
It is not clear why Iranian officials have not reprimanded the protesters. Trump warned last week that if Tehran “brutally kills peaceful protesters,” America will “help them.”
US President Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform, warning Iran that if it ‘violently kills peaceful protesters’ the United States will ‘set it free.’ An Iranian official then blamed the US for fueling the protests, which were fueled in part by the devaluation of Iran’s currency.
Trump’s comments prompted a fresh rebuke from Iran’s Foreign Ministry, which noted a “long history of criminal interference” in Iranian affairs by the US administration.
“The Ministry of Foreign Affairs considers the allegations against the great Iranian nation to be hypocritical, aimed at manipulating public opinion and concealing the many crimes committed against the Iranian people,” he said.
But those comments didn’t stop the US State Department on social media platform X from highlighting images showing 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 pay, 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, religious dictatorship, the end of the clerics, the end of the mullahs’ regime.”
