Demonstrators have continued to take to the streets of Iran, defying an escalating crackdown by authorities against the growing protest movement.

An internet shutdown imposed by the authorities on Thursday, January 8, 2026, has largely cut the protesters off from the rest of the world, but videos that trickled out of the country showed thousands of people demonstrating in Tehran overnight into Saturday morning.

They chanted: “Death to Khamenei,” in reference to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and: “Long live the shah.”

New protests broke out late on Saturday with people rallying in a northern district of Tehran, according to a video verified by AFP.

  Fireworks were set off over Tehran’s Punak Square as demonstrators banged pots and shouted slogans in support of the Pahlavi rulers ousted after the 1979 Islamic revolution, the video showed.

Crowds of protesters also marched through the streets of Mashhad as fires burned around them, a show of defiance in the hometown of Khamenei, who has condemned the protesters as “vandals” and blamed the US for fanning the flames of dissent.

More than 570 protests have taken place across all of Iran’s 31 provinces, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported early Sunday, January 11, 2026.

Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene if Iranian authorities kill protesters, earning angry rebukes from Tehran. He said on Friday that the Iranian authorities were “in big trouble, adding, “You better not start shooting, because we’ll start shooting too.”

On Saturday, January 10, 2026, at night, he said the US is “ready to help” as protesters in Iran faced an intensifying crackdown by the authorities of the Islamic Republic.

“Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!” Trump said in a social post on Truth Social, without elaborating.

Iran’s parliament speaker on Sunday warned that the US military and Israel will be “legitimate targets” if America strikes the Islamic Republic, as threatened by President Donald Trump.

The comments by Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf represent the first to add Israel into the mix of possible targets for an Iranian strike.

Qalibaf, a hard-liner, made the threat as lawmakers rushed the dais in the Iranian parliament, shouting: “Death to America!”

Authorities warned people not to take part in protests on Saturday. The country’s attorney general, Mohammad Mahvadi Azad, said anyone who did so would be considered an “enemy of god, a charge which carries the death penalty. State TV later clarified that anyone who even assisted protesters could face the charge.

Despite the crackdown, more protests were planned for the weekend. Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the former shah of Iran, called for protesters to take to the streets on Saturday and Sunday and seize control of their towns.