Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, has said Iran is fighting a “four-front war”: an economic war, a psychological war, a “military war” with the US and Israel and a “war against terrorists”.
In further remarks at a rally in Tehran, stood in front of the slogans “Death to Israel, Death to America”, he said: “The great Iranian nation has never allowed the enemy to achieve its goals.”
Roger Boyes: Three reasons why these Iran protests are an existential threat
Iran has been a pressure cooker for years but not since the so-called green wave of 2009-10 has unrest seemed so menacing to the regime. Back then, the rebels were fighting to overturn a rigged election, and failed. Later protests were also beaten down, such as those in 2022 over the death in custody of a young woman accused of flouting strict morality laws about wearing the hijab.
This time the chemistry is different. Earlier uprisings were often performative, staged to draw overseas support for their cause and pile foreign pressure on the regime. All that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had to do was stick his fingers in his ears and let his secret policemen pick off the malcontents one by one. But the present protests, which are entering a third week, are understood as an existential threat.
• Read in full here: Three reasons why these Iran protests are an existential threat
EU could impose further sanctions on Iran
The EU is “looking into” imposing additional sanctions on Iran over the repression of protests, the bloc said.
Anouar El Anouni, an EU spokesman, said: “We stand ready to propose new, more severe sanctions following the violent crackdown on protesters.”
Trump threatened with ‘unforgettable lesson’
President Trump speaks with journalist on Air Force One yesterday
ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
The speaker of Iran’s parliament has threatened Trump with an “unforgettable lesson” in case of attack.
Speaking at a rally in Tehran, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf also said Iran was fighting a “war against terrorists”.
He had previously warned that the US military and Israel would be legitimate targets in the event of US strikes on Iran.
Iranians ‘standing up against tyranny’
Dick Schoof, the Dutch prime minister, has declared his solidarity with Iranian protesters.
He said: “The regime in Iran is cracking down severely on all forms of protest. Many people have been killed as a result.
“The brave men and women in the streets of Iranian cities deserve our support. They are standing up against tyranny and making their loud calls for freedom heard.”
Schoof called on the Iranian regime “to stop the violence” and “release those who have been unjustly arrested”.
Fears that death toll is ‘nearing 6,000’
There are rising fears the number of protesters fatally shot by Iranian security forces could run into the thousands. Even with an internet blackout, mobile phone video has surfaced of truck-mounted machine guns strafing residential streets, hospitals inundated with injured protesters and a morgue overwhelmed by bodies after the first night of assaults.
Tallies from human rights organisations have climbed into the hundreds but these figures reflect only the bodies that have been identified, a meticulous process hindered by the nationwide communications blackout.
Beginning with reports from several hospitals in Tehran, an informal group of expatriate academics and professionals has estimated the number of deaths may have approached 6,000 as of Saturday. This excludes bodies transported directly to morgues by the authorities, including the hundreds that are found on the floors and in the car park of the Kahrizak Forensic Centre outside the capital. A social media post shows the scene with the bodies of protesters who were killed on Thursday night.
Internet blockage can be undone
Iranian protesters could circumvent the Starlink satellite blockage with a simple GPS tweak, a US-based think tank has claimed after it smuggled in about 500 terminals to promote digital freedom in Iran during the last wave of protests.
Some protesters use satellite connection, including the Elon Musk-owned Starlink, to connect to the internet, but it there has been an 80 per cent reduction in use over the past 60 hours because of the regime scrambling the GPS, which is needed to locate the nearest satellite.
The regime has used a “great Persian firewall” to blacklist the internet for 86 million Iranians, white listing only regime officials, institutions and security forces for use of the internet.
Gregg Roman, the executive director of the Middle East Forum, said Starlink had another option to connect, akin to radio triangulation by using advanced settings on its software to get around the blockage.
Farage: I support military action against IRGC
Nigel Farage made his comments at a press conference welcoming Nadhim Zahawi to Reform UK
HENRY NICHOLLS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Nigel Farage has backed British troops supporting any US military action in Iran, comparing it to action in Iraq and Libya.
Speaking at a press conference, the Reform UK leader said: “We went for regime change against Saddam, we went for regime change against Gaddafi, the regime change we’ve always need is against Iran.
“I very much hope president Trump acts in the next few days. We don’t know how many have been killed, it could be perhaps as many as 2,000. So would I support military action against the IRGC, the Revolutionary Guard, on the ground, Iran, so the good guys can win this revolution? Absolutely, 100 per cent.”
Ireland calls for ‘violent suppression’ to end
Micheál Martin, Ireland’s taoiseach, has called on the Iranian government to end its “repression” of protests.
He said in a statement: “I strongly condemn the brutal and violent suppression of protestors that has left hundreds of civilians dead in Iran over recent days.
“The people of Iran have a fundamental right to peaceful protest and freedom of expression. The repression must end. I urge the authorities in Tehran to uphold the rights of all their citizens.
“The violence must stop, the curtailing of basic freedoms must end, and dialogue begin at once.”
Pictured: Protests spread across the world
An anti-regime protester outside the Iranian Consulate in Istanbul on Sunday
YASIN AKGUL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
A demonstrator holds a burning photo of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, during a protest in London
CHRIS J RATCLIFFE/REUTERS
Protesters gather outside the Iranian Embassy in London
HARRY MURRAY/STORY PICTURE AGENCY
Protesters gather in Stephansplatz square in Vienna, Austria, on Sunday
JOE KLAMAR/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Activists take part in a “Free Iran” rally in Los Angeles, California
JONATHAN ALCORN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Protesters in Berlin, Germany
EBRAHIM NOROOZI/AP
‘Internet more important than bread’
Restoring internet access is more important to Iranians than bread, according to a text message sent from inside the country on Sunday as a nationwide communications blackout entered a fourth day.
Online services and international phone calls have been shut down, leaving much of the economy paralysed, including some cash machines, credit card transactions and business networks, as well as most news sources and social media.
“Nothing is more important than the internet,” the message, sent from an eastern border region, read. “Right now [it’s] more important than bread.”
• Read in full here: Internet more vital than bread, Iranians say on fourth day of blackout
Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, the chair of the European parliament’s security and defence committee, has called for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps to be designated a terrorist organisation.
She said on X: “The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps must be placed on the EU’s terrorist list as quickly as possible.
“It is a major oversight that this has not yet happened. Contrary to previous claims, this is possible; there is truly enough evidence for it.”
Peter Kyle told Times Radio that “it isn’t appropriate” for the UK government to look to proscribe a foreign state body.
Timeline: Why is Iran protesting now?
Protesters in Karaj
SHUTTERSTOCK EDITORIAL
The mass protests in Iran are the largest the country has seen in more than 15 years and threaten to topple the Islamic regime led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Demonstrations began in the bazaars of Tehran on December 28, fuelled by anger over economic hardship. They have now swollen into political unrest and protests involving hundreds of thousands of people across large swathes of the country.
It is not the first time Iran has experienced mass protests or predictions that they could bring down the regime. However, many believe this time is different, not least because the protesters span classes, generations and geography.
• Read in full: Why is Iran protesting now? A timeline since the 1979 Islamic Revolution
‘This violence must end,’ says Merz
Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, has condemned the “brutal” and “disproportionate” violence against protesters in Iran.
“This violence is not an expression of strength, but rather a sign of weakness. This violence must end,” he said during a visit to India.
“I call on the Iranian leadership to protect its population instead of threatening them.”
Watch: Anti-regime protests in Mashhad
Anti-government protesters gathered in Mashhad last night, footage sent to The Time has shown.
Over the past two weeks, protesters have defied the threat of death, detention and execution to call for the end of the decades-old Islamic republic and to bring down one of the longest-serving world leaders, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Family search through bodies for loved ones
Videos circulating online show dozens of body bags lying in the open air outside a morgue south of Tehran.
In footage filmed at the Kahrizak Diagnostic and Laboratory Centre of Tehran Province, people appear to inspect the bodies, looking for their loved ones.
Protests spread across Iran
The Times has been tracking the scale of protests before and after the shutdown, noting demonstrations across the country in almost all provinces and in at least 70 cities.
A fresh SMS shared with The Times on Monday was sent by the regime urging people to come out in support of the regime.
It called for: “The massive uprising of the unified nation of Iran against destructive elements and armed terrorists affiliated with America and the Zionists; Monday, Dey 22, at 14:00 (2:00 PM) across the country. In Tehran: Enqelab-e Eslami Square (Islamic Revolution Square).”
The Times hears from witnesses in Tehran
The Times has obtained information from sources who were able to connect to the internet intermittently via Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite network, evading the internet blackout.
Several informants in Tehran, Rasht, Mashhad and Sari said the protest crackdown over the past week had been intense and people were taking to the streets in large numbers without fear of the regime.
State television and other Iranian outlets have portrayed the situation as “calm” in the capital since last night, a claim contradicted by on-the-ground accounts.
“This is a joke; the regime’s hold is being weakened. That is why they have shut down the internet: to hide people’s presence in the streets and fear the power of the young Iranians,” one Tehran source said.
Khamenei: US has miscalculated its response
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the US has miscalculated its response to the Iranian protests.
“Today, as in the past, the United States are mistaken in their calculations regarding Iran,” the 86-year-old supreme leader wrote on his French-language X account.
X is banned in Iran, which is in the midst of a full-blown internet blackout to hide the Iranian regime’s crackdown on demonstrations against the country’s supreme leader.
On Friday, Khamenei used the platform to attack President Trump.
“The US President who judges arrogantly about the whole world should know that tyrants & arrogant rulers of the world, such as Pharaoh, Nimrod, Mohammad Reza [Pahlavi] & other such rulers saw their downfall when they were at the peak of their hubris. He too will fall.”
‘My girl was shot. I saw hundreds more bodies’
A fashion design student shot dead while protesting in Tehran has been one of the few anti-regime demonstrators killed by regime forces to have been identified.
Rubina Aminian, 23, was identified by her family at a mortuary in the capital, about 500km from their home in Kermanshah, western Iran.
Aminian was shot in the back of the head by riot police under the command of the regime, according to Iran Human Rights, an organisation based in Oslo.
• Read in full: Fashion student shot in back of head is among Iran protest dead
Iran ‘committed to diplomacy’
Communication between Tehran and Washington remains open through US special envoys or traditional intermediaries such as Switzerland, the Iranian foreign ministry has said.
Esmaeil Baghaei, a spokesman for the ministry, was responding to a question about contact between Iran and President Trump.
Trump said on Sunday that “the leaders of Iran” had called and said they wanted to negotiate. Baghaei said that “contradictory messages” had been sent that caused ambiguity, but insisted Iran remained committed to diplomacy.
Iranians abroad fear for family and friends
Iranians living abroad are increasingly anxious about the safety of their friends and family in the country amid the ongoing blackout of internet and mobile phone services.
Sahar Ajdamsani, an exiled Iranian singer in Germany, told The Times: “I have not been able to reach anyone through any medium for the past three days. It was as if a switch had been turned off. I stayed up all night, desperate to know what was going on.
“People watch the news and see reports of arrests and violence and they can’t help but wonder, ‘What if that’s my brother? What if that’s my street?’ But there is no way to know,” she said.
“This process is a disturbing and exhausting experience, marked by sleepless nights and constant refreshing of news feeds.”
China hits back at foreign intervention in Iran
China has said it opposes foreign intervention in Iran and hopes the Iranian people will maintain stability in the country.
When asked about Trump’s threat to use military force on behalf of protesters, Mao Ning, China’s foreign ministry spokesman, said: “We have always opposed interference in other countries’ internal affairs and consistently advocated that the sovereignty and security of all nations should be fully protected by international law.”
She added that China hopes the “people can overcome the current difficulty” and will “keep the country stable”.
Pro-regime demonstrations begin
Pro-government demonstrations are being held across Iran today after the Iranian regime invited people to protest against the US and Israel in a text message seen by The Times.
State media showed crowds of government loyalists in cities including Kerman and Zahedan carrying images of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, raising copies of the Quran and waving Iranian flags. In Kerman, demonstrators chanted “Death to America”, according to state-run Press TV.
In the eastern city of Birjand, footage from state broadcaster IRIB captured crowds chanting: “Our nation is awake”, “Despise the rioters”, “We are the revolutionary soldiers” and “We despise the seditionists”.
‘Innocent people faced with bullets’
Anoosheh Ashoori
JOHN NGUYEN FOR THE TIMES
A British-Iranian businessman who spent four years in Iran’s notorious Evin prison has cautioned against direct intervention.
Anoosheh Ashoori told Times Radio: “I think this is something that has to be solved from within.
“But what the international community can do is to cut all contacts with the Iranian regime so that they would be isolated completely, like political boycott, diplomatic boycott, economic boycott.
“Inside the country, because people are not armed or they are innocent people, just objecting to the living conditions that they are in, but they are being faced with bullets.”
Ashoori visited Tehran to see his mother in 2017 when four strangers bundled him into a car. He was detained in Evin prison until March 2022, when he was released alongside Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
UK government exploring all options
The situation in Iran is unfolding “very fast”, the business secretary has said as he insisted the government was doing all the preparations possible in “such unstable and uncertain times”.
He said Sir Keir Starmer was “working with our international partners to see how we can bring international pressure to bear on Iran at this important time”, but said it was too early to say if MPs would be consulted on any military intervention in the country.
Mourners gather to bury their dead in Tehran
IRIB/REUTERS
The death toll continues to rise in Iran as nearly 500 protesters are reported killed.
The US-based Human Rights Activist News Agency has confirmed the deaths of 490 demonstrators and 48 security personnel so far, with more than 10,600 people arrested in two weeks of unrest.
Iran has not provided an official toll.
Government unlikely to ban IRGC
Ministers are not minded to proscribe the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation, the business secretary said.
Peter Kyle told Times Radio that “it isn’t appropriate” for the government to look to proscribe a foreign state body. The ayatollah’s security force is leading the brutal suppression of pro-democracy protests in Iran.
There were calls over the weekend for the body to be prescribed by ministers. A US government spokesman said it was “obvious” that the IRGC was a terrorist organisation. He called on the UK government to “add pressure on Iran”.
But Kyle appeared to rule out such a move after a review last summer by Jonathan Hall, the government’s independent reviewer of terror laws. “[Hall] said the idea of prescribing like we do for domestic terror organisations isn’t appropriate for a foreign state organisation,” he said. “But we are looking very closely at how we can support people in Iran.”
Iran foreign minister insists protests are ‘under control’
Iran’s foreign minister has insisted that the situation in Iran is “now under total control” after violence linked to anti-government protests spiked over the weekend.
Abbas Araghchi alleged that demonstrations had “turned violent and bloody to give an excuse” for President Trump to intervene.
He added that the government was “ready for war but also for dialogue”.
Trump: Iran called to negotiate
Trump said Iranian leaders had called US officials to “negotiate”.
Speaking on board Air Force One, he claimed: “The leaders of Iran called, they want to negotiate. I think they’re tired of being beat up by the United States.
“A meeting is being set up. But we may have to act because of what’s happening before the meeting.”
Trump said Iran’s leaders “rule through violence” and warned that the US military was looking at “very strong options” to intervene if protesters continue to be killed.