Iran: Prince Reza Pahlavi calls on protesters to “prepare to take back” city centers
Iran’s theocratic regime is wavering under the weight of its own violence. As an unprecedented wave of popular protest sweeps across the country, Reza Pahlavi, son of the last Shah and a leading figure of the opposition in exile, has issued a direct call to reclaim public space from a religious власти he accuses of having seized the nation through fear, blood and repression.
In a message posted on X, Prince Reza Pahlavi urged Iranians to take to the streets in large numbers on January 10 and 11 from 6 p.m., carrying national symbols, in order to take back city centers that the mullahs have turned into militarized zones. The stated goal is no longer simple protest, but the peaceful reconquest of public space that has been confiscated for decades by an ideological caste deaf to the people’s aspirations.
The heir to the monarchy overthrown in 1979 also called on workers in vital sectors, oil, gas, energy and transport, to launch a national strike, the true Achilles’ heel of a regime that survives only through rent and coercion. He urged security forces and young people forcibly enlisted into the repressive apparatus to stop serving a machine that shoots its own children.
Faced with this mobilization, the response of the Islamist власти has remained true to its DNA: a total Internet shutdown, live ammunition, mass arrests and hateful rhetoric. According to the NGO Iran Human Rights, at least 51 people, including nine children, were killed in a single day. A toll that once again illustrates the deeply violent nature of a regime that governs through terror.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, locked in his paranoid rhetoric, described the demonstrators as “saboteurs” and “vandals,” refusing any self criticism and confirming the blindness of a власти cut off from social reality. This intransigent stance contrasts with the scale of the uprising, the largest since the protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022, a global symbol of the oppression inflicted on Iranian women.
On the international stage, support for the Iranian people is growing. The United States has publicly warned Tehran, while Reza Pahlavi said he is ready to return to Iran when the regime collapses, stating that this moment is now close.
What is unfolding in Iran today goes beyond a simple social crisis. It is the mass rejection of an authoritarian Islamist system that has suffocated a great people, squandered its wealth and turned religion into a tool of political domination. The mullahs now face a reality they can no longer hide.
Translated from Abderrazzak Boussaid’s French article – le7tv
