Iranian Supreme Leader denounces protests
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 9 January 2026
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has described demonstrators as vandals aiming to please a foreign power - as he faces the biggest wave of anti government protests in over a decade.
Also in the programme: we'll hear from the Greenlanders tired of President Trump's talk of take over; and the British government accuses the social media platform X of insulting the victims of misogyny and sexual abuse.
(Photo: Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Credit: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/West Asia News Agency)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:09.3 | Hello and welcome to NewsHour. It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service |
| 0:13.4 | Studios in central London. I'm Tim Franks. Just a quick word on something which we thought |
| 0:18.8 | might be about to happen, which we've just learned is not now happening. |
| 0:23.6 | There was some speculation that the US Supreme Court could issue its ruling today on challenging the legality of President Donald Trump's sweeping global tariffs. |
| 0:36.3 | That is now not happening today. We've just been informed. We are going to |
| 0:42.6 | begin the programme, though, in Iran. And just to be clear, I'm talking about the whole country, |
| 0:48.0 | not simply the capital, Tehran, because one of the really striking things about the |
| 0:52.6 | nationwide protests that are now almost two weeks |
| 0:55.0 | old is that they really are nationwide, that and growing in size and intensity. Some of this is |
| 1:01.5 | informed guesswork, informed especially by our tireless colleagues in the BBC Persian service, |
| 1:06.6 | but the evidence is stacking up. This was footage verified by BBC Persian in the city of Camille, in the southwest of the country. |
| 1:19.6 | That's the sound of a statue of Qasem Soleimani, the hugely important military commander killed six years ago by the Americans. |
| 1:26.8 | That statue being toppled. |
| 1:29.6 | Another video from Khaj Square in Tehran shows several vehicles on fire as protesters chant, |
| 1:35.4 | this is the last battle. Palavi will return. |
| 1:42.1 | Palavi, the family name of the former monarch, the Shah of Iran, toppled in the Islamic Revolution almost 50 years ago. |
| 1:49.4 | The Shah's son, Razor Palavi, is currently in the US. |
| 1:53.3 | We'll be speaking to a supporter of his in a few minutes. |
| 1:56.6 | As for the authorities, on state TV today, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had this uncompromising message. |
| 2:08.3 | The Islamic Republic came to power with the blood of hundreds of thousands of martyrs. |
| 2:22.2 | It will not back down against saboteurs. |
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