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Iran hard-liners rally as new protests over economy challenge government

In Tehran, some 4,000 people gathered at the Musalla prayer ground.

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Tehran protest

A wave of spontaneous protests over Iran’s weak economy have swept into Tehran, with students and others chanting against the government just hours after hard-liners held their own rally in support of the clerical establishment.

The demonstrations appear to be the largest to strike the Islamic Republic since the protests that followed the country’s disputed 2009 presidential election.

Thousands have already taken to the streets of cities across Iran, beginning at first on Thursday in Mashhad, the country’s second-largest city and a holy site for Shiite pilgrims.

Iran protests
Iranian protesters chant slogans at a rally (Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)

The protests in the Iranian capital, as well as US President Donald Trump tweeting about them, raised the stakes.

They also apparently forced state television to break its silence, acknowledging it had not reported on them on orders from security officials.

“Counter-revolution groups and foreign media are continuing their organised efforts to misuse the people’s economic and livelihood problems and their legitimate demands to provide an opportunity for unlawful gatherings and possibly chaos,” state TV said.

The protests appear to have been sparked by social media posts and a surge in prices of basic food supplies, such as eggs and poultry.

Officials and state media made a point on Saturday of saying Iranians have the right to protest and have their voices heard on social issues.

However, protesters in Tehran chanted against high-ranking government officials and made other political statements, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

Hundreds of students and others joined a new economic protest at Tehran University, with riot police massing at the gates as they shut down surrounding roads.

Fars also said protests on Friday struck Qom, a city that is the world’s foremost centre for Shiite Islamic scholarship and home to a major Shiite shrine.

Social media videos purport to show clashes between protesters and police in several areas.

At least 50 protesters have been arrested since Thursday, authorities said.

State TV also said some protesters chanted the name of Iran’s one-time shah, who fled into exile just before its 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Telecommunications minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi sent a message by Twitter to the chief executive of messaging service Telegram, Pavel Durov, saying: “A telegram channel is encouraging hateful conduct, use Molotov cocktails, armed uprising, and social unrest.”

Telegram responded saying it had suspended the account.

Iran Protests
Iranian hard-liners rallied on Saturday to support the country’s supreme leader and clerically overseen government (Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)

“A Telegram channel (amadnews) started to instruct their subscribers to use Molotov cocktails against police and got suspended due to our ‘no calls for violence’ rule. Be careful – there are lines one shouldn’t cross,” Mr Durov tweeted.

The semi-official ILNA news agency reported that the security deputy of Tehran’s governor, Mohsen Hamedani, said that the city’s provincial security council held a meeting to address the protests, but that its decisions were “classified”.

Earlier on Saturday, hard-liners rallied across the country to support Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and others.

The rallies, scheduled weeks earlier, commemorated a mass 2009 pro-government rally challenging those who rejected the re-election of hard-line president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad amid fraud allegations.

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