Troops deployed in three provinces to quell anti-government unrest came after six days of protests that killed 21 people, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Wednesday.
Thousands of Iranians took part in pro-government gatherings in several cities on Wednesday in a state-sponsored show of force after street unrest and protests marked the longest challenge to the Islamic elite in nearly a decade.
According to the state-run Reuters news agency, state television broadcast live footage of marches in the southwestern city of Kermanshah and Ilam and the northern city of Jorgan, where demonstrators held Iranian flags and portraits of spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
But in a sign of fears in the official circles of the steadfastness of the protests for that period, General Mohammad Ali Jafari, commander of the Revolutionary Guard, said he had sent troops to the provinces of Isfahan, Lurstan and Hamdan to confront the “new sedition” and most of those killed in those territories.
The intervention of the Revolutionary Guards was instrumental in suppressing an uprising in 2009 in which dozens of demonstrators were killed.
In the Shi’ite holy city of Qom, pro-government protesters chanted “Death to America’s mercenaries,” and television footage showed rallies in Isfahan, Iran’s third largest city, Abadan and Khorramshahr in the oil-rich southwest of the country.
“We will not leave our leader alone,” the protesters chanted slogans in support of Khamenei, accusing the United States, Israel and Britain of inciting the protests and chanting slogans calling for the execution of “rogue rioters.”
The protests, which began last week due to frustration over economic hardship between young people and the working class, turned into wider unrest in protest against the hardline religious establishment that has dominated the government since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Political groups held in defiance of the country’s powerful security services called for the overthrow of all Iranian leaders.
The demonstrations, which take place through social networking sites, usually begin after sunset, and protests continued until Tuesday evening. Footage on social networking sites showed street protesters and riot police deployed in several cities, including Ahwaz in the southwest.
US President Donald Trump, who sought to isolate Iran’s leadership in retreating from an American reconciliation approach adopted by his predecessor Barack Obama, said the United States would support protesters in Iran “in time.”
“We respect the people of Iran as they try to keep their corrupt government away,” he wrote in his latest tweets since the protests broke out on Twitter: “You will have great support from the United States in a timely manner.”
On Tuesday, Khamenei accused Iran’s enemies of stirring up protests, some of which he criticized by name and demanded him to step down.
An Iranian judicial official said on Wednesday that a European citizen had been arrested in protests in the western region of Boroujerd but did not mention his nationality.
“This European citizen … was trained by European intelligence services and was leading the rioters,” the head of the justice department in Boroujerde, Hamid Reza Abu al-Hassani, was quoted by Tasnim news agency as saying.
In Geneva, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (HRH), Prince Zeid bin Raad al-Hussein, called on Iran on Wednesday to rein in security forces to avoid inflaming violence and respect the rights of protesters to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.
In a statement, Prince Zeid said more than 20 people had been killed and hundreds detained throughout Iran over the past week and urged the authorities to conduct “thorough, independent and objective investigations into all acts of violence that took place.”
The protesters had the right to be heard. The authorities should make an effort “to ensure that the security forces dealt in a proportionate and necessary manner and were in full conformity with international law”.
A judicial official warned that some detainees may face the death penalty.
It was the most serious protest since 2009 when protesters took to the streets on charges of electoral fraud that led to the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a second term.
The protests have put pressure on President Hassan Rowhani, who led efforts to reach an agreement with world powers in 2015 that Iran reduce its nuclear program in exchange for lifting most of the international sanctions imposed on it.
Many protesters are frustrated by what they see as his government’s failure so far to deliver on promises of job creation and investment as a result of the nuclear deal.
Rohani told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan by telephone on Wednesday that he hoped the unrest would end in a few days. Rohani said the Iranians had the right to protest.
People in Iran are free to protest under the law, “Rohani was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency.
Trump said in tweets that the Iranians were impatient with allegations of corruption and what he called the terrorist regime.
Trump must decide in mid-January whether to continue lifting US sanctions on Iran’s oil exports under the terms of a nuclear deal it opposes or will impose again.
But analysts say re-imposing sanctions on oil could increase economic hardship for the people of Iran, especially since recent protests began because of high unemployment and rising prices.
“If the Americans’ sympathy with the Iranians was real, they would not impose harsh sanctions on our nation,” said Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander Jafari on Wednesday.
“Friendship with the United States will never be good, and the Guard is ready to help the government overcome the economic challenges,” Jafari told Fars news agency, referring to Rohani’s rapprochement policy with the West.
The discontent over the economic recession and allegations of corruption within the clergy and security community has sparked protests after the Iranians resorted to social networking sites to vent their anger.
The anger has been building up since last month. Thousands of Iranians took part in the writing by using the Hastag (“I am dissatisfied”) label in which they expressed their dissatisfaction with Rohani, who was elected on the basis of promises to tackle unemployment and allow greater social freedoms.
The criticism focused on the latest draft budget of the Rouhani government, which, as usual, allocated billions of dollars to universities and religious institutions, while the government said it did not have enough money to help the unemployed, including 28.8 percent of young people.
Both conservative and reformist Khamenei have pledged to fight corruption and achieve economic prosperity for all Iranians.
But little has changed. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard, for example, still controls the huge economic empire.
While more than 20 million Iranians, out of 80 million, live below the poverty line, rich people, including relatives of government officials, import tens of thousands of luxury cars every year, raising widespread discontent.
Young men from the poor class dominated the current protests in Iran, but some middle-class urbanites also took part.
In an effort to restrict the flow of information and invitations to anti-government rallies, the authorities in Tehran have restricted the use of applications such as Telegram for text messages and InStagram, owned by Facebook.