Anti-government hackers momentarily cut off a televised statement by President Ebrahim Raisi as the Islamic Republic observed the 44th anniversary of the Iranian revolution on Saturday.
Raisi made a plea to the “deceived youth” to repent in order to be pardoned by Iran’s supreme leader as his conservative regime faces one of the most audacious threats from youthful protestors pushing for its overthrow.
In that case, he told a crowd congregated at Tehran’s expansive Azadi Square: “the Iranian people will embrace them with open arms”.
His live televised speech was interrupted on the internet for about a minute, with a logo appearing on the screen of a group of anti-Iranian government hackers that goes by the name of “Edalate Ali (Justice of Ali). A voice shouted “Death to the Islamic Republic.”
Iran saw widespread unrest after Mahsa Amini, 22, died while in the morality police’s care in September.
One of the major threats to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution that ended 2,500 years of monarchy has been the security forces’ brutal assault on protestors.
Iranian authorities on Friday freed the imprisoned dissident Farhad Meysami, who had been on a hunger strike, and the Iranian-French professor Fariba Adelkhah as part of an amnesty commemorating the anniversary of the revolution.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, announced an amnesty on Sunday that applied to a huge number of convicts, including some who had been detained during recent anti-government demonstrations.
Numerous political prisoners and protestors, including some well-known personalities, were released under amnesty, according to the rights group HRANA, however, the specific terms of their release were unknown.
