Internet blackout in Iran as protests intensify after exiled prince’s call

Residents of Iran’s capital shouted slogans from their homes and gathered on the streets on Thursday night following a call by the country’s exiled crown prince for a mass protest, witnesses said, marking a fresh escalation in demonstrations that have spread across the Islamic Republic. Internet access and telephone services were cut shortly after the protests began.

The protest represented the first test of whether the Iranian public could be swayed by Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, whose fatally ill father fled Iran just before the country's 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Protests swell amid unrest

Demonstrations have included cries in support of the exiled prince, something that could bring a death sentence in the past but now underlines the anger fuelling the protests that began over Iran's ailing economy.

Thursday saw a continuation of the demonstrations that popped up in cities and rural towns across Iran on Wednesday. More markets and bazaars shut down in support of the protesters. So far, violence around the demonstrations has killed at least 39 people while more than 2,260 others have been detained, said the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.

Also read | Chance of US ‘intervention’ grows as Iran protests go on; 35 dead, 1,200 held

Meanwhile, the protests have remained broadly leaderless, though a call for protests by Iran's exiled crown prince will test whether or not demonstrators are being swayed by messages from abroad. “The lack of a viable alternative has undermined past protests in Iran,” wrote Nate Swanson of the Washington-based Atlantic Council, who studies Iran.

Pahlavi had called for demonstrations at 8 pm local (1630 GMT) on Thursday and Friday. When the clock struck, neighbourhoods across Tehran erupted in chanting, witnesses said. The chants included “Death to the dictator!” and “Death to the Islamic Republic!” Others praised the shah, shouting: “This is the last battle! Pahlavi will return!” Thousands could be seen on the streets.

Iran weighs Trump threat

It remains unclear why Iranian officials have yet to crack down harder on the demonstrators. Trump warned last week that if Tehran “violently kills peaceful protesters,” America “will come to their rescue.” Trump's comments drew a new rebuke from Iran's Foreign Ministry.

“Recalling the long history of criminal interventions by successive US administrations in Iran's internal affairs, the Foreign Ministry considers claims of concern for the great Iranian nation to be hypocritical, aimed at deceiving public opinion and covering up the numerous crimes committed against Iranians,” it said.

But those comments haven't stopped the US State Department on the social platform X from highlighting online footage purporting to show demonstrators putting up stickers naming roads after Trump or throwing away government-subsidised rice.

(With agency inputs)