Iranian state TV was hacked on Sunday, leading to multiple channels airing a message from exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi urging protesters to continue to take to the streets after the regime’s violent crackdown appeared to put an end to the three-week demonstrations.
The message from Pahlavi, who has emerged as the leader of an opposition movement to the Iranian regime during the protests, calls on Iranians to join the demonstrations and for security forces to side with the protesters. The apparent cyberattack was reposted by Pahlavi’s communications office, which described his message as a “call to action.”
Pahlavi’s statement signals the protests are far from over, even as the regime’s mass killing of its own citizens seemingly quelled the country-wide demonstrations. Its cancellation of executions of protesters also pushed President Donald Trump away from fairly immediate U.S. military intervention — at least for now.
On Saturday, Trump returned to regime change rhetoric when he told Politico that it’s “time to look for new leadership in Iran.”
“The man is a sick man who should run his country properly and stop killing people,” Trump said, referring to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “His country is the worst place to live anywhere in the world because of poor leadership.”
The regime has responded in kind, with President Masoud Pezeshkian vowing “all-out war” if Khamenei is targeted in any U.S. strike or military mission.
Khamenei has also been blaming Trump directly for the deaths of thousands of protesters, calling him a “criminal” and saying he’s “guilty due to the casualties, damages and slander he inflicted upon the Iranian nation.”
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If large-scale protests resume, they would only place even more pressure on the regime, which is overseeing an economic crisis. But the death toll would also likely only increase, especially as reports from activists indicate security forces are “everywhere.”
An internet blackout imposed by the regime has made it difficult to accurately estimate the death toll from the protests. But multiple human rights groups estimate it is in the thousands, with an Iranian government source putting it at 5,000.
