ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – The EU foreign policy chief on Friday said violence against protesters in Iran is “unacceptable”, stressing that footage emerging from Tehran show “a disproportionate” response by security forces, as nationwide demonstrations continue.

Nationwide protests in Iran have entered their second week, beginning on December 27 at Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, where business owners and shopkeepers launched strikes and protests over the falling value of the Iranian rial against the US dollar. The unrest later spread to other provinces, with chants increasingly targeting the state amid a surging current of anti-government sentiment. 

Huge crowds took to the streets of Tehran and other parts of the country on Thursday, leading authorities to impose a nationwide internet blackout and carry out a violent crackdown on the protesters, the extent of which remains unconfirmed.

“The Iranian people are fighting for their future. By ignoring their rightful demands, the regime shows its true colours. Images from Tehran reveal a disproportionate and heavy-handed response by the security forces,” Kaja Kallas, the EU’s High Representative of the for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, wrote on X.

“Any violence against peaceful demonstrators is unacceptable. Shutting down the internet while violently suppressing protests exposes a regime afraid of its own people,” she added.

Iran’s newly-formed Secretariat of the Supreme National Security Council on Friday said it will show no leniency towards protesters, blaming the US and Israel for the developments.

“Although these recent incidents began with protests against market instability, they were drawn into the scene of insecurity in the country through the guidance and planning of the Zionist enemy,” the council said in a statement.

While US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran if authorities kill peaceful protesters, as of Friday, 42 people had been identified as “killed by direct fire from government forces,” according to the Oslo-based Hengaw Human Rights Organization.

The Iranian security council said that security forces and the judiciary “will show no leniency toward saboteurs,” adding that the forces “will neutralize the insecurity-making plan of the Zionist regime and its godfather, America.”

Trump, in an interview with Fox News aired Friday, expressed solidarity with Iranian protesters and cited Iran’s history of “machine guns gunning them [protesters] down,” saying, “If they do that, we’re going to hit them very hard. We can hit them hard. We’re ready to do it.”

The council slammed Trump’s statements as a joint plan with Israel to “bring insecurity to the lives of the Iranian nation.”

Earlier in the day, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed Trump’s remarks as “irrelevant”, accusing him of siding with “rioters and people who are harmful to the country,” and later describing protesters as “foreign agents” and “inexperienced and careless people” acting in line with Trump’s “wishes”. 

Iran has a long history of labeling protesters as “rioters” and alleging ties to the US and Israel, responding with heavy crackdowns, arrests, and, in some cases, charges that carry the death penalty.

Nationwide protests continue across Iran, with even the country’s most conservative cities, Mashhad and Qom, and the Tehran Grand Bazaar participating in strikes and demonstrations. These areas had largely stayed out of the country’s largest protest movements in the past.