Trump blasts Iranian regime, says it is time for change
Protests cause violent night; at least 12 dead
JEDDAH: US President Donald Trump on Monday blasted the Iranian regime for repressing its people as anti-government protests and demonstrations spread to more cities claiming, according to The Associated Press, more than 12 lives, including a policeman.
According to state TV, the protesters tried to overrun military bases and police stations before security forces repelled them.
The demonstrations, the largest in Iran since its disputed 2009 presidential election, began on Thursday in Mashhad over economic issues and have since expanded to several cities. Some protesters are chanting against the government and the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Hundreds of people have been arrested.
“TIME FOR CHANGE!” wrote Trump on his Twitter account, expressing US support for the demonstrators. The country is “failing at every level despite the terrible deal made with them by the Obama Administration,” he said.
“The great Iranian people have been repressed for many years,” he wrote. “They are hungry for food & for freedom. Along with human rights, the wealth of Iran is being looted.”
Iranian state television aired footage of a ransacked private bank, broken windows, overturned cars, and a firetruck that appeared to have been set ablaze. It reported that clashes on Sunday night killed 10 people.
“Armed protesters tried to take over some police stations and military bases but faced serious resistance from security forces,” state TV reported. It did not say where the attacks occurred.
Later Monday, state TV said clashes had killed six people in the western town of Tuyserkan, 295 km southwest of Tehran. It said clashes in the town of Shahinshahr, 315 km south of Tehran, had killed three more. It did not say where the 10th person had been killed.
Earlier Monday, the semi-official ILNA news agency quoted Hedayatollah Khademi, a representative for the town of Izeh, as saying that two people had died there Sunday night.
He said the cause of death was not immediately known, though authorities later described one of the deaths as the result of a personal dispute. Many in Izeh, some 455 km southwest of Tehran, have hunting rifles in their homes.
Harvard scholar and Iranian affairs expert Majid Rafizadeh called the protests unprecedented.
“People from all sectors — working class, middle class, women and youth — are coming together. They are demanding regime change, not just the limited reforms we saw in previous protests,” he told Arab News.