Rights group says Tehran using more lethal force against protesters amid internet blackout

Unconfirmed report claims hundreds killed, mostly by live ammunition; Khamenei said to put Revolutionary Guards on highest state of alert; Iran blames violence on US, Israel

Major Iranian cities were gripped overnight Friday by new mass rallies denouncing the Islamic Republic, as activists on Saturday expressed fear that authorities were intensifying their suppression of the demonstrations under cover of an internet blackout.

The two weeks of protests have posed one of the biggest challenges to the theocratic authorities who have ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, although Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has expressed defiance and blamed the United States.

Following the movement’s largest protests yet on Thursday, new demonstrations took place late Friday, according to images verified by AFP and other videos published on social media.

This was despite an internet shutdown imposed by the authorities, with monitor Netblocks saying Saturday that “Iran has now been offline for 48 hours, as telemetry shows the nationwide internet blackout remains firmly in place.”

The blackout has sparked fears among activists that authorities are now violently cracking down on the protests, with less chance that the proof will reach the outside world. Amnesty International said it was analyzing “distressing reports that security forces have intensified their unlawful use of lethal force against protesters” since Thursday in an escalation “that has led to further deaths and injuries.”

The Telegraph reported that Khamenei had put Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the highest state of alert.

“The leader has ordered the Sepah [IRGC] to remain on the highest level of readiness — even higher than during the June war,” a senior Iranian official told the paper, referring to the 2025 war with Israel.

“He is in closer contact with the IRGC than with the army or the police, because he believes the risk of IRGC defections is almost non-existent, whereas others have defected before. He has placed his fate in the hands of the IRGC,” the source said.

Iranian officials say underground “missile cities,” or large ballistic missile sites, have also been activated to deal with foreign threats, according to the outlet.

One official dismissed a report earlier in the week that Khamenei has plans to flee to Moscow if an uprising threatens the regime. “He will not leave Tehran even if B-52s are flying overhead.”

An anonymous Tehran doctor cited by TIME magazine said Saturday that 217 protester deaths, “most by live ammunition,” were registered in six hospitals in the city after the Thursday night demonstrations. If confirmed, the figure would represent a significant rise in protester killings, after Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights said Friday that it had confirmed 51 protesters killed during the previous 13 days of demonstrations.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned on Saturday that safeguarding security was a “red line.” Iran’s army vowed to safeguard the country’s national interests, strategic infrastructure and public property, while urging citizens to be vigilant to thwart what it called “the enemy’s plots.”

The statements came after US President Donald Trump issued a new warning to Iran’s leaders on Friday that killing protesters would bring about repercussions, and after Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday declared, “The United States supports the brave people of Iran.”

Unrest continued overnight. State media said a municipal building was set on fire in Karaj, west of Tehran, and blamed “rioters.” State TV broadcast footage of funerals of members of the security forces, who it said were killed in protests in the cities of Shiraz, Qom and Hamedan.

On Saturday, Iran’s exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi urged two more nights of demonstrations and called on protesters to take control of city centers.

The protests that began two weeks ago are now marked by calls for the end of the Islamist clerical system that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution that ousted Pahlavi’s father, the pro-Western shah, who fled the country and died in Egypt in 1980.

Demonstrations have included cries in support of the shah, something that could have been cause for a death sentence in the past, and now underlines the anger fueling the protests that began over Iran’s ailing economy.

Crown prince says he believes his return to Iran is ‘very near’

New anti-regime demonstrations took place across Iran late Friday, according to images verified by AFP and other videos published on social media, which showed people wishing death upon Khamenei.

In Tehran’s Saadatabad district, people banged pots and chanted anti-government slogans, including “death to Khamenei” as cars honked in support, a video verified by AFP showed.

Other images disseminated on social media and by Persian-language television channels based outside Iran showed similar large protests elsewhere in the capital, as well as in the eastern city of Mashhad, Tabriz in the north and the holy city of Qom.

In the western city of Hamedan, a man was shown waving a Shah-era Iranian flag featuring the lion and the sun amid fires and people dancing.

In the Pounak district of northern Iran, people were shown dancing around a fire in the middle of a highway, while in the Vakilabad district of Mashhad, a city home to one of the holiest shrines in Shiite Islam, people marched down an avenue chanting “death to Khamenei.” It was not possible to immediately verify the videos.

In a Persian-language video statement, Pahlavi commended protesters’ “courage and resilience,” called for two more nights of protests on Saturday and Sunday, and urged civil servants, including key workers in the transportation and energy sectors, to join nationwide strikes.

“Our goal is no longer just to take to the streets. The goal is to prepare to seize and hold city centers,” the crown prince said. He added that he was “preparing to return to my homeland” on a day he believed was “very near.”

The protests represent the first test of Pahlavi’s ability to sway the Iranian public. The US-based crown prince had similarly called for the protests that took place on Thursday and Friday nights.

Pahlavi had said he would offer further plans depending on the response to his calls for protest. His support of and from Israel has drawn criticism in the past, particularly after the 12-day Israel-Iran war in June.

Trump: ‘Iran is in big trouble’

Speaking to reporters at the White House on Friday, Trump said Iran was in “big trouble.”

Asked what his message to Iran’s leaders was, Trump, who struck key Iranian nuclear facilities during the June war, said: “You better not start shooting because we’ll start shooting too.”

The president has made similar threats throughout the past two weeks of protests in Iran.

“Iran is in big trouble. It looks to me that the people are taking over certain cities that nobody thought were really possible just a few weeks ago,” Trump said. “We’re watching the situation very carefully.”

“I’ve made the statement very strongly that if they start killing people like they have in the past, we will get involved,” he said. “That doesn’t mean boots on the ground, but it means hitting them very, very hard where it hurts. We don’t want that to happen.”

“This is something pretty incredible that’s happening in Iran… They’ve done a bad job. They’ve treated their people very badly, and now they’re being paid back,” said Trump.

The comments came as Iran’s UN Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani told the Security Council that the US was to blame for “the transformation of peaceful protests into violent, subversive acts and widespread vandalism.”

Iravani wrote in a letter seen by Reuters that Iran condemns “the ongoing, unlawful, and irresponsible conduct of the United States of America, in coordination with the Israeli regime, in interfering in Iran’s internal affairs through threats, incitement, and the deliberate encouragement of instability and violence.”

He accused Washington of “destabilizing practices” that undermine the founding UN Charter, violate fundamental principles of international law, and threaten the foundations of international peace and security.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also accused the US and Israel on Friday of “directly intervening” in the protests. A US State Department spokesperson said Araghchi’s comment “reflects a delusional attempt to deflect from the massive challenges the Iranian regime faces at home.”

Jacob Magid contributed to this report.