Videos show scores of protesters marching through the Iranian capital and other cities in what is said to be the largest demonstration of force by anti-clergy opponents in years.
Peaceful protests held in Tehran and the second city of Mashhad on Thursday evening, without being dispersed by security forces, can be seen in footage seen by BBC Persia.
A watchdog group later reported a nationwide internet blackout.
Footage shows protesters calling for the overthrow of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the return of the former shah’s exiled son, Reza Pahlavi, who had urged his supporters to take to the streets.
It’s been 12 days since unrest, sparked by anger over Iran’s currency plunge, spread to more than 100 cities and towns across Iran’s 31 provinces, according to human rights groups.
The US-based Human Rights Defenders News Agency (HRANA) said at least 34 protesters, five of them children, and eight security personnel were killed and 2,270 other protesters were arrested.
The Norway-based Iranian Human Rights Commission (IHR) said at least 45 protesters, including eight children, were killed by security forces.
BBC Persia confirmed the deaths and identities of 22 people, while Iranian authorities reported that six security personnel were killed.
On Thursday evening, a video posted on social media and seen by BBC Persia showed large groups of protesters moving along a main road in the northeastern city of Mashhad.
Chants of “Long live Shah” and “This is the final battle! Pahlavi will return” can be heard. And at one point, several men were seen climbing onto the overpass and removing what appeared to be a surveillance camera attached to it.
Another video posted online showed a large group of protesters walking along a main road in eastern Tehran.
In footage transmitted to BBC Persia from north of the capital, another large crowd can be heard chanting: “This is the last battle! Pahlavi will return.” Elsewhere in the north, protesters were filmed shouting “disgrace” and “don’t be afraid, we’re all in this together” after clashing with security forces.
Other videos showed protesters chanting “Death to the dictator” in the central city of Isfahan, referring to Khamenei. “Long live Shah” was said in the northern city of Babol, while in the northwestern city of Tabriz, “Do not be afraid, we are all together.”
In the western city of Dezful, footage sent to BBC Persia showed large crowds of protesters and security guards opening fire in a central square.
This evening’s protests come not long after Reza Pahlavi, whose father was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic revolution and lives in Washington, D.C., urged Iranians to “take to the streets and shout your demands as a united front.”
Iranian state media downplayed the scale of the unrest on Thursday. Some posted videos of empty streets and denied that protests had occurred at all.
Meanwhile, Internet watchdog NetBlocks said its findings showed Iran was in the midst of a “nationwide Internet blackout.”
“This incident follows a series of digital censorship measures targeting protests across the country and disrupting the public’s right to communicate at a critical moment,” he warned, citing previous disconnections in several cities.
Video taken earlier in the day in Lomar, a small town in the western province of Ilam, showed crowds chanting “Cannons, tanks, fireworks, mullahs must go” – a reference to the clerical establishment. Another photo showed people throwing papers into the air outside a bank that appeared to have been broken into.
Other footage showed many shops closed in several predominantly Kurdish cities, the towns of Ilam, Kermanshah and Lorestan provinces.
This follows calls for a general strike by exiled Kurdish rebel groups in response to the deadly crackdown on protests in the region.
At least 17 protesters were killed by security forces in Ilam, Kermanshah and Lorestan during the unrest, many of them Kurds or members of the Lor minority, according to Kurdish human rights group Hengaw.
On Wednesday, violent clashes broke out between protesters and security forces in several cities, towns and other areas in western Iran.
The IHR said it was the deadliest day of the unrest, with 13 protesters confirmed dead across the country.
“The evidence shows that the scope of the crackdown is becoming more violent and widespread by the day,” said Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the group’s director.
Hengau said two protesters were shot dead by security forces in Hoshik-e Bizar in northern Gilan province on Wednesday night.
Iran’s semi-official news agency Fars, which is close to the Revolutionary Guard, also reported that three police officers were killed on Wednesday.
It said two people were shot dead by armed men from a group of ‘rioters’ in the southwestern town of Lodegan, while a third was stabbed to death ‘during efforts to control unrest’ in Malad district, west of Tehran.
XU.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday repeatedly threatened military intervention if Iranian authorities kill protesters.
“It tells me that if you start killing people during riots, you’re going to have a lot of riots,” he said in an interview on the Hugh Hewitt Show.
Iranian President Massoud Fezeshkian previously urged security forces to exercise “maximum restraint” in handling peaceful protests. “Violent or coercive actions should be avoided,” the statement said.
Khamenei, the most powerful man in Iran, said Saturday that authorities “must talk to the protesters” but that “the rioters must stay there.”
The protests began on December 28, when shopkeepers took to the streets of Tehran to express outrage over another plunge in the value of Iran’s currency, the rial, against the U.S. dollar on the open market.
The rial has fallen to record lows over the past year and inflation has soared as high as 40% as sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program weaken the economy amid government mismanagement and corruption.
University students soon joined the protests, which began to spread to other cities, and crowds were often heard chanting slogans critical of clerical institutions.
In a message to the BBC through a UK-based activist, a woman in Tehran said desperation was driving the protests.
“We live in limbo,” she said. “I feel like I’m hanging in the air with no wings to migrate and no hope of pursuing my goals here. Life here has become unbearable.”
Another said he protested because his dreams had been ‘stolen’ by the clerical establishment. She said she wanted to let people know that ‘we still have a voice to shout and a fist to punch them in the face.’
A woman from the western city of Ilam said she knew young people from families linked to the institution who were taking part in the protests. She said, “My friend and three sisters whose father is a prominent figure in the intelligence community are joining without my father’s knowledge.”
The protests are the most widespread since the 2022 uprising, sparked by the in-custody death of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman detained by morality police on suspicion of not properly wearing her hijab. More than 550 people have been killed and 20,000 detained by security forces over several months, according to human rights groups.
The largest protests since the Islamic Revolution took place in 2009. This is an incident in which millions of Iranians took to the streets of major cities after the presidential election controversy. The ensuing crackdown left dozens of opposition supporters dead and thousands detained.
