Iran’s Khamenei blames Israel, US in first comments on protests

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has blamed the United States and Israel for protests that have gripped the country for more than two weeks, accusing the countries of trying to stop Iran’s “progress”.

Khamenei on October 3 branded the anti-government protests, some of the biggest the country has seen in years, as “riots,” Al Jazeera reports.  

 “I say explicitly that these riots and this insecurity were a design by the US and the occupying, fake Zionist regime [Israel] and those who are paid by them, and some traitorous Iranians abroad helped them,” Khamenei told graduating cadets at a police university in Tehran.  

“In the accident that happened, a young woman passed away, which also pained us, but reactions to her death before investigations [take place] … when some come to make the streets insecure, burn Qurans, take hijabs off covered women, and burn mosques and people’s cars – they’re not a normal, natural reaction,” Khamenei said while surrounded by the chiefs of the police, army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The 83-year-old leader had remained silent on the protests that erupted after a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, died last month in the custody of Iran’s morality police.

Residents of Iran have been protesting since September 18 after the death of Mahsa Amini, who was detained due to wearing the wrong hijab. The official cause of death was the girl's heart problems. At the same time, according to eyewitnesses, the girl was beaten by representatives of law-enforcement bodies.

Amini's relatives claim that she had no health problems.