Iranian influential figures are pushing to execute protesters after crushing nationwide demonstrations that killed more than 3,000 people in the country’s bloodiest upheaval since 1979, according to a Guardian report.
Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami used his Friday sermon to brand demonstrators “armed hypocrites” who deserved death. The influential cleric sits on both the Guardian Council and the Assembly of Experts, the body that selects Iran’s supreme leader.
Khatami attacked protesters as servants of Israel and America. “Armed hypocrites should be put to death,” he told worshippers, describing demonstrators as “butlers” and “soldiers” of the US and Israel. Neither country should “expect peace”, he said.
His speech clashed with claims from Donald Trump, who said earlier this week that Iran had agreed to stop executing protesters. The US president appeared to back away from military strikes based on this assurance.
Trump doubled down on Friday night, thanking Iran for halting 800 executions. He provided no source for the figure.
Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei rejected Trump’s account on Saturday, branding the US president a “criminal” for meddling in the protests. Khamenei promised more punishment for demonstrators.
“By God’s grace, the Iranian nation must break the back of the seditionists just as it broke the back of the sedition,” Khamenei said.
Rights groups paint a grimmer picture. The Human Rights Activists news agency counts 3,090 dead, with nearly 4,000 cases still under review. Police have arrested 22,100 people, sparking fears about how detainees are being treated.
The unrest began on 28 December when Tehran traders protested the rial’s collapse. Within days, demonstrations swept the country and protesters started demanding the government’s removal. The two-and-a-half weeks of chaos represented Iran’s gravest challenge since the 1979 revolution.
Authorities crushed the movement through what Human Rights Watch called “mass killings of protesters” on Friday. The streets are now largely empty.
Officials are making examples of those they caught. They frame the protests as a foreign conspiracy to topple the government. Khatami claimed demonstrators wrecked 350 mosques, 126 prayer halls and 20 other religious buildings. He said 400 hospitals, 106 ambulances, 71 fire trucks and 50 emergency vehicles suffered damage.
Whether the protest movement will flare up again remains unclear. Iran has shut down the internet for more than a week, cutting the country off from the world.
Reza Pahlavi, whose father ruled Iran before the 1979 revolution, emerged as a prominent opposition voice during the protests. He pressed his call for regime change on Friday and urged Trump to act.
“I believe the president is a man of his word,” Pahlavi said. But he added: “regardless of whether action is taken or not, we as Iranians have no choice to carry on the fight”.
(information from The Guardian/image source: Wana News Agency/Reuters)
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