Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has blamed the United States and Israel for protests that have gripped the country for more than two weeks, accusing the countries of trying to stop Iran’s “progress”.
Khamenei on Monday branded the anti-government protests, some of the biggest the country has seen in years, as “riots”. The 83-year-old leader had remained silent on the protests, which erupted after a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, died last month in the custody of Iran’s morality police.
“I say explicitly that these riots and this insecurity were a design by the US and the occupying, fake Zionist regime [Israel] and those who are paid by them, and some traitorous Iranians abroad helped them,” Khamenei told graduating cadets at a police university in Tehran.
“In the accident that happened, a young woman passed away, which also pained us, but reactions to her death before investigations [take place] … when some come to make the streets insecure, burn Qurans, take hijabs off covered women, and burn mosques and people’s cars – they’re not a normal, natural reaction,” Khamenei said while surrounded by the chiefs of the police, army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Khamenei sought to further cast the unrest as part of a foreign effort to destabilise Iran, saying another “excuse” would have been found to destabilise the country if it were not for Amini’s death. The US is said to be considering further sanctions on Iran in light of the protests, which have led to the deaths of dozens of people. It has eased some internet sanctions on Iran to try to help Iranians circumvent government restrictions on the internet imposed since the protests began.
