The embattled regime in Iran is set to execute 26-year-old Erfan Soltani. He was sentenced after participating in anti-government protests that have rocked the Islamic Republic in recent weeks.
Authorities are struggling to contain widespread unrest. Triggered by economic woes on 28 December, riots have spread from Tehran to more than a dozen cities across eight provinces.
At least 2, 571 people have been killed since the government answered protesters with a brutal crackdown. This figure includes 12 children and nine bystanders. Thousands have been arrested.
SMread: ‘America is captured by Trump’
‘Help is on its way’
On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump egged protesters on: “Iranian Patriots; keep protesting — take over your institutions!!!” he wrote on Truth Social. Then, giving the clearest indication yet of an intention to intervene, he wrote: “Help is on its way”.
Similarly, Reza Pahlavi said in a video message: “My compatriots, the world has not only seen and heard your voice and courage — it is now responding. By now, you have probably heard the message from the president of the United States”.
“Help is on the way. Continue the fight as you have done so far. Do not allow this regime to. create the illusion that life is normal. After all the massacres, there is a sea of blood between us and this regime. Save the names of all these criminals. They will be prosecuted for what they have done,” the deposed Shah’s son said.
Meanwhile, Iran’s mission to the United Nations maintains that US policy towards Iran are “rooted in regime change,” with “sanctions, threats, engineered unrest and chaos serving as the mode operandi to manufacture a pretext for military intervention. This playbook has failed before. The Iranian people will defend their country — and, most assuredly, it will fail again.”
Image: Erfan Soltani.
