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Iran’s leadership played down the nationwide mass demonstrations in an interview with a government spokesman on Saturday after major protests erupted again in the main cities of Tehran and Mashhad on Friday.<\/p>\n
There have been reports of dozens of deaths during nearly two weeks of demonstrations against the country’s leadership and its handling of the economic crisis.<\/p>\n
But the spokesman, speaking on state television, said calm had prevailed in most cities, according to a translation of a video by Iribnews, the state broadcasting network’s news agency.<\/p>\n
He also said that the populace supported the government troops in at least one city.<\/p>\n
“Armed terrorists” had again tried to disrupt public security in various cities, the spokesman said, citing reports from the field.<\/p>\n
However, thanks to the arrival of the security forces and the strong presence of the population, there had been no armed attacks, he added.<\/p>\n
In the northern city of Qazvin, people had sharply condemned the actions of “armed terrorists,” according to the spokesman.<\/p>\n
Demonstrations in Tehran and Mashhad<\/strong><\/p>\n For the second evening in a row, however, large numbers of people took to the streets various major cities. Protests took place in Tehran and Mashhad and other locations on Friday.<\/p>\n Widely shared videos on social media showed crowds in central squares.The footage could not initially be independently verified.<\/p>\n Few images are getting out of Iran since the government shut down the internet on Thursday. The exact scope of the demonstrations remains unclear.<\/p>\n Pro-government media such as state broadcasting are not affected by the internet ban and continue to disseminate their reports, for example via the Telegram messaging service.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n