David Gritten
Massive groups of demonstrators have been seen marching through Tehran and other cities, according to videos, marking what is portrayed as the largest display of defiance against the clerical regime in several years.
The calm protests in Tehran and the major city of Mashhad on Thursday night, which security forces did not interrupt, have been captured in footage authenticated by BBC Persian.
Subsequently, a monitoring organization indicated a countrywide internet outage.
In the clips, demonstrators can be heard demanding the removal of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the restoration of Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the former king, who has called on his followers to demonstrate.
This marks the 12th straight day of turmoil triggered by frustration over the devaluation of the Iranian currency, which has expanded to over 100 cities and towns in all 31 provinces of Iran, as per human rights organizations.
The Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA), based in the US, has reported that at least 34 protesters — five of whom are minors — and eight members of the security forces have lost their lives, with 2,270 other demonstrators detained.
The Norway-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR) has stated that a minimum of 45 protesters, including eight children, have been killed by law enforcement.
BBC Persian has corroborated the fatalities and identities of 22 individuals, while Iranian officials have confirmed the deaths of six security personnel.
On Thursday night, videos shared on social media and validated by BBC Persian displayed a large assembly of protesters navigating a main road in Mashhad, located in the northeastern part of the country.
Slogans such as “Long live the shah” and “This is the final battle! Pahlavi will return” were audible. At one moment, several individuals were spotted ascending an overpass and dismantling what seemed to be surveillance cameras attached to it.
In footage sent to BBC Persian from northern Tehran, a different sizable group is heard chanting “This is the final battle! Pahlavi will return”. In other northern areas, protesters were recorded shouting “Dishonourable” and “Don’t be scared, we are united” following an encounter with law enforcement.
Additional footage exhibited protesters proclaiming “Death to the dictator” – referring to Khamenei – in the central city of Isfahan; “Long live the shah” in Babol, located in the north, and “Don’t be scared, we are united” in Tabriz in the northwest.
In the western city of Dezful, footage shared with BBC Persian depicted a significant crowd of demonstrators, along with security personnel seemingly firing from a central square.
The evening demonstrations occurred shortly after Reza Pahlavi, whose father was ousted by the 1979 Islamic revolution and resides in Washington DC, called on Iranians to “take to the streets and, as one, raise your demands”.
In a message on X, Pahlavi stated “millions of Iranians expressed their desire for freedom tonight”, referring to the demonstrators as his “brave compatriots”.
He expressed gratitude to US President Donald Trump for making the “regime accountable”, and appealed to European leaders to follow suit.
Pahlavi has also urged protests to persist from 20:00 local time (16:30 GMT) on Friday evening.
Iranian official media played down the magnitude of Thursday’s disturbances. In some cases, they denied outright that protests took place, showing videos of desolate streets.
Meanwhile, internet monitoring group NetBlocks reported its data indicated that Iran was “undergoing a nationwide internet outage”.
“This follows a sequence of increasing digital suppression measures aimed at protests across the nation and impedes the public’s right to communicate at a crucial time,” it cautioned, referencing past connectivity losses in many cities.
Earlier that day, footage from Lomar, a small locality in the western province of Ilam, depicted a crowd calling out “Cannons, tanks, fireworks, mullahs must go” – referring to the clerical regime. Another clip showed individuals tossing papers into the air outside a bank that seemed to have been invaded.
Other videos showed numerous closed shops in several mainly Kurdish cities and towns across Ilam, Kermanshah, and Lorestan provinces.
This followed a call for a general strike from exiled Kurdish opposition groups in reaction to the lethal repression of protests in the area.
At least 17 demonstrators have been killed by security forces in Ilam, Kermanshah, and Lorestan during the unrest, with many being members of the Kurdish or Lor ethnic groups, according to the Kurdish human rights organization Hengaw.
On Wednesday, violent confrontations occurred between protesters and security forces in various cities and towns in western Iran, as well as other areas.
IHR stated that it had been the most lethal day of the upheaval, with confirmation of 13 protesters lost across the nation.
“This evidence indicates that the scope of the crackdown is becoming increasingly violent and widespread every day,” remarked the organization’s director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam.
Hengaw reported that two demonstrators were shot dead by security forces in Khoshk-e Bijar, located in the northern Gilan province, on Wednesday night.
Iran’s semi-official news outlet Fars, which has ties to the Revolutionary Guards, reported that three police officers also perished on Wednesday.
It noted that two were shot dead by armed members of a group of “rioters” in the southwestern town of Lordegan, and the third was fatally stabbed “during attempts to control disturbances” in Malard county, west of Tehran.
XOn Thursday, US President Donald Trump reiterated his threat of military intervention if Iranian authorities take the lives of protesters.
“I’ve made it clear that if they begin killing people, as they often do during their protests – they experience numerous demonstrations – if they do, we will strike them very hard,” he stated in an interview with the Hugh Hewitt Show.
Separately, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent remarked that the Iranian economy was “on the brink”.
While addressing the Economic Club of Minnesota on Thursday, he added: “[President Trump] does not wish for them to inflict more harm on the protesters. This is a critical juncture.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian previously urged security forces to show “extreme restraint” when dealing with peaceful demonstrations. “Any violent or coercive actions must be avoided,” a statement claimed.
Khamenei – who possesses ultimate authority in Iran – stated on Saturday that officials should “engage with the protesters” but that “rioters must be dealt with firmly”.
The protests initiated on 28 December, when merchants took to the streets of Tehran to express their dissatisfaction with a further drastic decline in the value of the Iranian currency, the rial, against the US dollar in the open market.
The rial has plummeted to a record low over the past year, and inflation has surged to 40% as sanctions regarding Iran’s nuclear program choke an economy also hindered by government mismanagement and corruption.
University students soon joined in the protests, which expanded to additional cities, with huge crowds frequently shouting slogans critical of the clerical regime.
In messages sent to the BBC through a UK-based activist, a woman in Tehran expressed that despair was fueling the demonstrations.
“We are living in uncertainty,” she shared. “I feel like I’m suspended in the air without the ability to migrate or hope for pursuing my aspirations here. Life has turned unbearable.”
Another individual stated she was protesting because her aspirations had been “taken” by the clerical regime, and she wished it to realize that “we still possess a voice to shout, a fist to punch them in the face.”
A woman from the western city of Ilam mentioned she was aware of young people from families connected with the regime who were participating in protests. “My friend and her three sisters, whose father is a prominent figure in the intelligence services, are joining without their father’s knowledge,” she claimed.
These protests have been the most widespread since the uprising in 2022, triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman detained by morality police for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly. Over 550 individuals were killed and around 20,000 detained by security forces in the following months, per human rights organizations.
The largest protests since the Islamic revolution were seen in 2009, when millions of Iranians took to the streets of major cities following a disputed presidential election. Dozens of opposition activists were killed, and thousands were arrested during the subsequent crackdown.
