As Iran returned to uneasy calm after a wave of protests that drew a bloody crackdown, a senior hard-line cleric called Friday for the death penalty for detained demonstrators and directly threatened U.S. President Donald Trump — evidence of the craze gripping authorities within the Islamic Republic.
Trump, though, struck a conciliatory note, thanking Iran’s leaders for not executing a whole lot of detained protesters, in an extra sign he could also be backing away from a military strike. Executions, in addition to the killing of peaceful protesters, are two of the red lines laid down by Trump for possible motion against Iran.
Harsh repression that has left several thousand people dead appears to have succeeded in stifling demonstrations that began Dec. 28 over Iran’s ailing economy and morphed into protests directly difficult the country’s theocracy.
There have been no signs of protests for days in Tehran, where shopping and street life have returned to outward normality, though a week-old web blackout continued. Authorities haven’t reported any unrest elsewhere within the country.
“Iran canceled the hanging of over 800 people,” Trump told reporters in Washington, adding that “I greatly respect the indisputable fact that they canceled.”
Trump didn’t make clear who he spoke to in Iran to substantiate the state of any planned executions.
The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency on Friday put the death toll at 3,090. The number, which exceeds that of another round of protest or unrest in Iran in many years and recalls the chaos surrounding the 1979 revolution, continues to rise.
The agency has been accurate throughout the years of demonstrations, counting on a network of activists inside Iran that confirms all reported fatalities.
The AP has been unable to independently confirm the toll. Iran’s government has not provided casualty figures.
Hard-line cleric’s fiery sermon
In contrast, the sermon by Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami carried by Iranian state radio sparked chants from those gathered for prayers, including: “Armed hypocrites needs to be put to death!”
Get breaking National news
For news impacting Canada and around the globe, enroll for breaking news alerts delivered on to you after they occur.
Khatami, a member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts and Guardian Council long known for his hard-line views, described the protesters because the “butlers” of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and “Trump’s soldiers.” He said Netanyahu and Trump should await “hard revenge from the system.”
“Americans and Zionists mustn’t expect peace,” the cleric said.
FILE – Iranian senior cleric Ahmad Khatami delivers his sermon during Friday prayer ceremony in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File).
EN
His fiery speech got here as allies of Iran and the USA alike sought to defuse tensions. Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke Friday to each Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Israel’s Netanyahu, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Russia had previously kept largely quiet concerning the protests. Moscow has watched several key allies suffer blows as its resources and focus are consumed by its 4-year-old war against Ukraine, including the downfall of Syria’s former President Bashar Assad in 2024, last yr’s U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran and the U.S. seizure of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro this month.
Exiled Iranian royal calls for fight to proceed
Days after Trump pledged “assistance is on its way” for the protesters, each the demonstrations and the prospect of imminent U.S. retaliation appeared to have receded. One diplomat told The Associated Press that top officials from Egypt, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Qatar had raised concerns with Trump that a U.S. military intervention would shake the worldwide economy and destabilize an already volatile region.
Iran’s exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi urged the U.S. to make good on its pledge to intervene. Pahlavi, whose father was overthrown by Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, said he still believes the president’s promise of assistance.
“I consider the president is a person of his word,” Pahlavi told reporters in Washington. He added that “no matter whether motion is taken or not, we as Iranians don’t have any selection to hold on the fight.“
“I’ll return to Iran,” he vowed. Hours later, he urged protesters to take to the streets again from Saturday to Monday.
Despite support by diehard monarchists within the diaspora, Pahlavi has struggled to realize wider appeal inside Iran. But that has not stopped him from presenting himself because the transitional leader of Iran if the regime were to fall.
Iran authorities list protest damage
Khatami, the hard-line cleric, also provided the primary overall statistics on damage from the protests, claiming 350 mosques, 126 prayer halls and 20 other holy places had sustained damage. One other 80 homes of Friday prayer leaders — a very important position inside Iran’s theocracy — were also damaged, likely underlining the anger demonstrators felt toward symbols of the federal government.
He said 400 hospitals, 106 ambulances, 71 fire department vehicles, and one other 50 emergency vehicles also sustained damage.
Whilst protests appeared to have been smothered inside Iran, 1000’s of exiled Iranians and their supporters have taken to the streets in cities across Europe to shout out their rage at the federal government of the Islamic Republic.
Amid the continuing web shutdown, some Iranians crossed borders to speak with the skin world. At a border crossing in Turkey’s eastern province of Van, a trickle of Iranians crossing on Friday said they were traveling to get across the communications blackout.
“I’ll return to Iran after they open the web,” said a traveler who gave only his first name, Mehdi, out of security concerns.
Also crossing the border were some Turkish residents escaping the unrest in Iran.
Mehmet Önder, 47, was in Tehran for his textiles business when the protests erupted. He said he laid low in his hotel until it was shut for security reasons, then stayed with certainly one of his customers until he was capable of return to Turkey.
Although he didn’t enterprise into the streets, Önder said he heard heavy gunfire.
“I understand guns, because I served within the military within the southeast of Turkey,” he said. “The guns they were firing weren’t easy weapons. They were machine-guns.”
In an indication of the conflict’s potential to spill over borders, a Kurdish separatist group in Iraq said it has launched attacks on Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in recent days in retaliation for Tehran’s crackdown on protests.
A representative of the Kurdistan Freedom Party, or PAK, said its members have “played a task within the protests through each financial support and armed operations to defend protesters when needed.” The group said the attacks were launched by members of its military wing based inside Iran.
Amiri reported from Recent York. Associated Press journalists Will Weissert and Darlene Superville in Washington and Serra Yedikardes on the Kapikoy Border Crossing, Turkey, contributed.