![\"In](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/in-this-frame-grab-from-video-taken-by-an-individual-not-emp-KLG4K7ZS6BCNNE53PBLXPZJ564.jpg\")
<\/p>\nEuropean leaders urged Iran to allow its citizens to demonstrate without reprisal after Tehran signalled security forces would crack down on the protesters whom Donald Trump has pledged to support.<\/p>\n
At least 62 people have been killed in the protests that began in late December over Iran\u2019s ailing economy and have morphed into the most significant challenge to the government in years.<\/p>\n
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed Trump as having hands \u201cstained with the blood of Iranians\u201d as his supporters shouted \u201cDeath to America!\u201d in footage aired by Iranian state television. <\/p>\n
State media later referred to the demonstrators as \u201cterrorists,\u201d setting the stage for a violent crackdown as in other protests in recent years.<\/p>\n
Protesters are \u201cruining their own streets … in order to please the president of the United States,\u201d the 86-year-old Khamenei said to a crowd at his compound in Tehran. <\/p>\n
\u201cBecause he said that he would come to their aid. He should pay attention to the state of his own country instead.\u201d<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei separately vowed that punishment for protesters \u201cwill be decisive, maximum and without any legal leniency.\u201d<\/p>\n
Late Friday (local time), German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron issued a joint statement condemning reported deadly violence against the protesters, and urged Iran to allow its citizens to express themselves without fear of reprisal. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In this frame grab from video taken by an individual not employed by The Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran shows people blocking an intersection during a protest in Tehran (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n
The Associated Press could not independently confirm local media reports that state forces had opened fire on protesters in Tehran on Friday.<\/p>\n
There was no immediate response from Washington, though Trump has repeatedly pledged to strike Iran if protesters are killed, a threat that has taken on greater significance after the US military raid that seized Venezuela’s former President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.<\/p>\n
Internet cut off<\/p>\n
Despite Iran\u2019s theocracy cutting off the nation from the internet and international telephone calls, short online videos shared by activists purported to show protesters chanting against Iran\u2019s government around bonfires as debris littered the streets in the capital, Tehran, and other areas into Friday morning.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/iran-protests-TOR3C7XVYFDVZJMP7QJVWCKX3Q.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
(AP)<\/p>\n
Iranian state media alleged \u201cterrorist agents\u201d of the US and Israel set fires and sparked violence. It also said there were \u201ccasualties,\u201d without elaborating.<\/p>\n
The full scope of the demonstrations that began Dec. 28 couldn\u2019t be immediately determined due to the communications blackout.<\/p>\n
The protests also 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\u2019s 1979 Islamic Revolution. <\/p>\n
Pahlavi, who called for the protests Thursday night, similarly has called for demonstrations at 8pm Friday (Tehran time).<\/p>\n
Demonstrations have included cries in support of the shah, something that could bring a death sentence in the past but now underlines the anger fueling the protests that began over Iran\u2019s ailing economy.<\/p>\n
So far, violence around the demonstrations has killed at least 62 people while more than 2300 others have been detained, said the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat turned the tide of the protests was former Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi\u2019s calls for Iranians to take to the streets at 8 p.m. on Thursday and Friday,\u201d said Holly Dagres, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. <\/p>\n
\u201cPer social media posts, it became clear that Iranians had delivered and were taking the call seriously to protest in order to oust the Islamic Republic.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is exactly why the internet was shut down: to prevent the world from seeing the protests. Unfortunately, it also likely provided cover for security forces to kill protesters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thursday night protests preceded internet shutdown<\/p>\n
When the clock struck 8pm Thursday (local time), neighbourhoods across Tehran erupted in chanting, witnesses said. <\/p>\n
The chants included \u201cDeath to the dictator!\u201d and \u201cDeath to the Islamic Republic!\u201d <\/p>\n
Others praised the shah, shouting: \u201cThis is the last battle! Pahlavi will return!\u201d Thousands could be seen on the streets before all communication to Iran cut out.<\/p>\n
On Friday, Pahlavi called on Trump to help the protesters, saying Khamenei \u201cwants to use this blackout to murder these young heroes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have proven and I know you are a man of peace and a man of your word,\u201d he said in a statement. “Please be prepared to intervene to help the people of Iran.”<\/p>\n
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Pahlavi\u2019s appeal to Trump.<\/p>\n
Pahlavi had said he would offer further plans depending on the response to his call. His support of and from Israel has drawn criticism in the past \u2014 particularly after the 12-day war Israel waged on Iran in June. <\/p>\n
Demonstrators have shouted in support of the shah in some demonstrations, but it isn\u2019t clear whether that\u2019s support for Pahlavi himself or a desire to return to a time before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.<\/p>\n
The internet cut also appears to have taken Iran\u2019s state-run and semiofficial news agencies offline. The state TV acknowledgement at 8am Friday (local time) represented the first official word about the demonstrations.<\/p>\n
State TV claimed the protests were violent and caused casualties, but did not offer nationwide figures. It said the protests saw \u201cpeople\u2019s private cars, motorcycles, public places such as the metro, fire trucks and buses set on fire.\u201d <\/p>\n
State TV later reported that violence overnight killed six people in Hamedan, some 280 kilometres southwest of Tehran, and two security force members in Qom, 125 kilometres south of the capital.<\/p>\n
The European Union and Germany condemned the violence targeting demonstrators as new protests were reported in Zahedan in Iran’s restive southwestern Sistan and Baluchestan province.<\/p>\n
Trump renews threat over protester deaths<\/p>\n
Iran has faced rounds of nationwide protests in recent years. <\/p>\n
As sanctions tightened and Iran struggled after the 12-day war, its rial currency collapsed in December, reaching 1.4 million to US$1. <\/p>\n
Protests began soon after, with demonstrators chanting against Iran\u2019s theocracy.<\/p>\n
It remains unclear why Iranian officials have yet to crack down harder on the demonstrators. Trump warned last week that if Tehran \u201cviolently kills peaceful protesters,\u201d America \u201cwill come to their rescue.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an interview with talk show host Hugh Hewitt aired Thursday, Trump reiterated his pledge.<\/p>\n
Iran has \u201cbeen told very strongly, even more strongly than I\u2019m speaking to you right now, that if they do that, they\u2019re going to have to pay hell,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
He demurred when asked if he\u2019d meet with Pahlavi.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sure that it would be appropriate at this point to do that as president,\u201d Trump said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think that we should let everybody go out there, and we see who emerges.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking in an interview with Sean Hannity aired Thursday night on Fox News, Trump went as far as to suggest Khamenei may want to leave Iran.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s looking to go someplace,\u201d Trump said. \u201cIt’s getting very bad.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"European leaders urged Iran to allow its citizens to demonstrate without reprisal after Tehran signalled security forces would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,5107,43,40,38,41,39,1745],"class_list":{"0":"post-225969","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-middle-east","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories","15":"tag-uk-europe"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}