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Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s toppled Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, speaks throughout a press convention, Monday, June 23, 2025 in Paris.
Thomas Padilla/AP
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Thomas Padilla/AP
Because the Islamic Republic of Iran nears two weeks of nationwide demonstrations, the federal government in Tehran has acknowledged the protests whereas persevering with with a crackdown.
The loss of life toll from clashes between protestors and authorities safety forces had reached 116 as of early Sunday, with greater than 2,600 individuals detained, based on the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists Information Company (HRANA). Among the many most distinguished cheerleaders for continued motion in opposition to the federal government is Reza Pahlavi, son of the previous Shah of Iran, who has issued frequent messages encouraging protesters.
Iran’s legal professional normal, Mohammad Movahedi Azad, introduced Saturday that individuals within the unrest can be thought-about an “enemy of God,” A press release, carried by Iranian state tv, mentioned even those that “helped rioters” would face that cost, which carries the loss of life penalty.
The present wave of protests started on Dec. 28, following a collapse within the nationwide forex, the rial, which is at present buying and selling at over 1.4 million to the U.S. greenback and has misplaced half its worth since September. Worldwide sanctions have squeezed the financial system and the resultant public grievances have prompted direct challenges to Iran’s theocracy.
In response, the federal government has mobilized safety forces and state-controlled media. State tv has broadcast pro-government rallies, whereas on the identical time surveillance footage launched by the federal government affiliated Fars information company depicted a protester in Isfahan allegedly firing an extended gun as others lit fires and threw gasoline bombs at what seemed to be a authorities compound.One other government-affiliated information company with shut ties to Iran’s highly effective Revolutionary Guard pressure, Tasnim, reported that authorities had detained practically 200 individuals belonging to “operational terrorist groups,” alongside allegations these arrested had possessed weapons together with firearms, grenades, and gasoline bombs.
A divisive determine
Amid these occasions, Reza Pahlavi, the 65-year-old exiled Crown Prince and son of the late Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, has re-emerged as a number one determine within the varied Iranian opposition actions. In messages shared on social media, Pahlavi spurred protesters onto the streets Thursday night time and Friday. He urged demonstrators to proceed public road protests over the weekend, carrying the nation’s previous lion-and-sun flag and different nationwide symbols used through the time of his father to “declare public areas as your individual.”
Regardless of being born in Iran, Pahlavi has lived in exile for practically 50 years.
Born in Tehran in 1960, he was appointed Iran’s crown prince till the overthrow of his father – who had inherited the throne from his personal father, a military officer who seized energy with assist from the British. After efficiently driving rising oil costs through the Seventies, financial inequality had deepened over the past Shah’s rule, and his Savak intelligence company turned infamous for the torture of dissidents.
That Pahlavi dynasty resulted in 1979 when thousands and thousands throughout the nation participated in protests in opposition to the shah, uniting secular leftists, labor unions, professionals, college students, and Muslim clergy. Reza Pahlavi had left his homeland for flight college at a U.S. air base in Texas a 12 months earlier, in 1978, and subsequently noticed his father flee Iran through the onset of what turned often known as the Islamic Revolution, throughout which period Shiite clerics established a brand new theocratic authorities. After the loss of life of his father, a royal court docket in exile introduced that Reza Pahlavi had inherited the monarchical position of Shah on Oct. 31,1980, his twentieth birthday.A pacesetter for a future Iran?
Pahlavi’s efforts to place himself as a pacesetter for a future Iran have prompted typically heated debates inside and outdoors the nation. And whereas protesters have shouted in assist of the shah in some protests, it isn’t clear whether or not that’s assist for Pahlavi himself or a need to return to a time earlier than the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
His public assist of Israel has prompted important criticism previously from atypical Iranians and different members of opposition teams, notably after the 12-day conflict launched by Israel in June 2025.
He has sought to have a voice by social media movies, and Farsi-language information channels reminiscent of Iran Worldwide have highlighted his requires protests. In press interviews, Pahlavi has repeatedly raised the thought of a constitutional monarchy, maybe with an elected slightly than a hereditary ruler, however has additionally acknowledged it’s as much as Iranians to decide on.
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