PHOTO: Anti-Saudi demonstrators in Tehran on Friday


Amid its rhetorical war with Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regime has organized mass protests against Riyadh on Friday.

The Islamic Propagation Coordination Council said the rallies were held across the country, starting from more than 850 locations of Friday prayers. The demonstrations will also protest the al-Khalifa monarchy of Bahrain, a close ally of Saudi Arabia, over its crackdown on political dissidents.

Iranian State media said demonstrators would be chanting “Down with al-Saud and al-Khalifa” to show their anger.

Addressing worshipers in the Tehran Friday Prayer, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati said that it was surprising that other countries had failed to protest over their “martyrs”: “The Saudi actions today are tantamount to what their predecessors in Hijaz did out of their barbarism and ignorance.”

In recent weeks, Iranian officials — including the Supreme Leader — have stepped up their criticism of Saudi Arabia, focusing on the stampede near Mecca in September 2015 that killed thousands of Hajj pilgrims.

See Iran Daily, Sept 5: Supreme Leader — “Saudi Arabia Has Hijacked the Hajj”

Tensions rose further in January when Saudi Arabia executed a prominent Shia cleric. A crowd in Tehran attacked the Saudi Embassy, leading Riyadh to break relations with the Islamic Republic.

The dispute has been reinforced by Iranian-Saudi conflict in the region, including over the Syrian civil war and Saudi intervention in the Yemeni conflict.

On Monday, the Supreme Leader issued a Hajj message that declared the Saudi monarchy were “traitors”, serving the US and Israel, who had “hijacked” the pilgrimage. Two days later, he used a speech to denounce “the vicious and cursed progeny of al-Saud”.

President Rouhani joined the attacks on Wednesday, calling on “countries in the region and across the world [to] take coordinated measures to discipline the Saudi government”.

See Iran Daily, Sept 8: Rouhani Joins Attacks on Saudi Arabia

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi buttressed the campaign on Thursday with a call on Bahrain’s Foreign Minister, Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifah, to deal with his own country’s “internal problems instead of being narrow-minded and adopting repetitious stances ordered and indoctrinated by those who have gone astray in the region”.

Qassami said al-Khalifah sould avoid comments about the Hajj “without referring to the massacre of innocent Muslims during the Mina tragedy” in 2015.

Earlier on Thursday, the Bahraini Foreign Minister accused Iran of trying to “politicize” this year’s pilgrimage.