Reuters reported Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said some “rioters” were trying to please the U.S. president by damaging public property, and told Donald Trump to focus on problems in his own country.
Protesters have been taking to the streets, chanting and marching into the early hours of Friday after the country’s exiled crown prince called for demonstrations, defying Iran’s theocratic rulers even as authorities severed internet access and international phone lines nationwide.
By Thursday evening, crowds flooded the streets, chanting slogans against the ruling clerics and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The outpouring came just hours after Reza Pahlavi—the son of Iran’s last monarch—issued a call for nationwide protests, urging Iranians to raise their voices from streets, rooftops and even inside their homes.
The demonstrations marked the first real test of Pahlavi’s ability to mobilise public anger, decades after his father, gravely ill at the time, fled Iran on the eve of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
