President Raisi says Iran thwarted U.S. destabilisation

President Ebrahim Raisi said Iran’s cities were “safe and sound” after what he called a failed attempt by the United States to repeat the 2011 Arab uprisings in the Islamic Republic, Iranian media reported on Saturday as protests continued for a 50th day.
Iran’s clerical leadership has struggled to suppress demonstrations which erupted in September after the death of young Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini who had been detained by morality police for flouting strict laws on women’s dress.
Hundreds of people, mostly protesters, have been killed according to activists in one of the most serious waves of unrest to sweep the country since the 1979 Islamic Revolution which overthrew the U.S.-backed Shah.
As Iranian authorities marked the anniversary this week of the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran by radical students, President Joe Biden backed the protesters, saying: “We’re gonna free Iran. They’re gonna free themselves pretty soon.”
Students and women have led many of the current protests, with women throwing off and burning veils in defiance of the strict dress codes and students chanting down officials on university campuses, according to unverified video footage.