Thousands hold pro-government rallies: Iran deploys Revolutionary Guards to quell protests

LONDON: Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have deployed forces to three provinces to put down an eruption of anti-government unrest, their commander said on Wednesday, after six days of protests that have left 21 people dead.

Thousands of Iranians took part in pro-government rallies in several cities on Wednesday in a state-sponsored show of force aimed at countering unrest posing the most sustained challenge to the Islamic Republic’s clerical elite in almost a decade.

State television broadcast live pictures of rallies in the southwestern cities of Kermanshah and Ilam and in the northern city of Gorgan, where marchers waved Iranian flags and pictures of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

But, in a sign of official concern about the resilience of the protests, the Revolutionary Guards commander, Major General Mohammed Ali Jafari, said he had dispatched forces to Isfahan, Lorestan and Hamadan provinces to tackle "the new sedition".

Most of the casualties among protesters have occurred in those regions. The Revolutionary Guards, the sword and shield of Iran’s theocracy, were instrumental in suppressing the 2009 uprising, killing dozens of protesters then.

In the holy city Qom, pro-government demonstrators chanted "death to American mercenaries". There were similar rallies in Isfahan, Iran’s third largest city, and Abadan and Khorramshahr in the oil-rich southwest, state TV footage showed.

Marchers chanted, "The blood in our veins is a gift to our leader (Khamenei)," and, "We will not leave our leader alone. " They accused the United States, Israel and Britain of inciting protests, shouting "the seditionist rioters should be executed!" The protests began last week out of frustration over economic hardship among the youth and working class but have evolved into broader unrest against the hardline clerical establishment dominating since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Political rallies held in defiance of the pervasive security services have called for the overthrow of all Iranian leaders. The protests, organised on social media, have largely been held after dusk.

They continued into Tuesday night with social media videos showing demonstrators on the streets and riot police in several cities including Ahvaz in the southwest. US President Donald Trump, who has sought to isolate the Tehran leadership, reversing the conciliatory approach of predecessor Barack Obama, said Washington would throw its support behind the protesters at an "appropriate time".

"Such respect for the people of Iran as they try to take back their corrupt government. You will see great support from the United States at the appropriate time!" Trump wrote in the latest of a series of tweets on Iran’s turmoil.

On Tuesday, Khamenei had accused Iran’s adversaries of fomenting the protests, some of which have criticised him by name and called for him to step down. An Iranian judicial official said on Wednesday a European citizen was arrested in protests in the Borujerd area of western Iran, but did not specify the nationality of the detainee.

"(This) European citizen had been trained by European intelligence services and was leading the rioters," Hamidreza Abolhassani, head of Borujerd’s Justice Department, was quoted by Tasnim news agency as saying.

In Geneva, the UN human rights chief urged Iran to rein in security forces to avoid further violence and respect the right of protesters to freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly. Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said more than 20 had been killed and hundreds arrested across Iran in the past week. He called for "thorough, independent and impartial investigations of all acts of violence."