Prominent cleric Ayatollah Hossein Nouri Hamedani met with security officials in Qom on Saturday where he expressed support for the legitimate demands of the people, but warned of “stooges of the enemy” infiltrating protests to use them against the establishment, Tasnim news reported.
According to Tasnim news, which is close to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Western media are attempting to portray recent protests as an anti-government uprising.
The demonstrations began in Mashhad on Thursday where people protested against rising costs of goods and high unemployment.
They spread across the country on Friday and took on an anti-government tone as people expressed anger over corruption and clerical rule. They accused officials of being more invested in external affairs like conflicts in Syria and Yemen than meeting the needs of the people.
At least 20 protesters were arrested in Kermanshah on Saturday, according to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network.
“When we don’t have bread to eat, we are not afraid of anything,” a protester in Kermanshah told the Center for Human Rights in Iran.
“The police violently attacked us with batons, fists, and kicks, and we threw stones at them. We did everything we could. It was an uprising. It’s just the beginning. We cannot hold back because we cannot feed our families with silence.”
#Iran’s Islamist regime is deploying large numbers of Basiji and Niro Intzami militias to prevent #Iranprotests. #Iran pic.twitter.com/6tpNDGPs1K
— PDKI (@PDKIenglish) December 30, 2017
Confrontations were also reported between protesters and security forces at the University of Tehran on Saturday, with the forces using tear gas and preventing people from entering or leaving the campus.
Kurdish parties have welcomed the protests.
The Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) and Komala issued a joint statement asking for international support for the demonstrations. “The people of Kurdistan have always stood up against the Islamist regime and they support the people all over Iran in their struggle for freedom,” the parties stated.
The protests have the “potential to bring about fundamental changes” and set the country on the path to democracy and freedom, said the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK) in a statement.
US President Donald Trump, a vocal critic of Tehran, tweeted his support for the “peaceful protests by Iranian citizens fed up with regime’s corruption & its squandering of the nation’s wealth to fund terrorism abroad.”
Urging the Iranian government to respect people’s right to freedom of expression, he warned “The world is watching!”
The US Department of State also issued a statement backing the protesters. “Iran’s leaders have turned a wealthy country with a rich history and culture into an economically depleted rogue state whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed, and chaos,” read a statement issued Friday night by spokesperson Heather Nauert.
Condemning the arrests of peaceful protesters, she urged the world to throw their support behind the demonstrators “and their demands for basic rights and an end to corruption.”
Iran’s Foreign Ministry hit back, describing Trump’s comments as “worthless” and “opportunistic.”
The demonstrations, generally drawing numbers of fewer than 100 in some places and thousands in others, were outnumbered by a large pro-government rally held on Saturday, commemorating a December 30, 2009 event reaffirming allegiance to the Islamic Republic establishment.
