Washington condemned on Friday arrests made by security forces during anti-government protests in Iran, saying the regime should respect freedom of expression.
“Many reports of peaceful protests by Iranian citizens fed up with regime’s corruption and its squandering of the nation’s wealth to fund terrorism abroad,” President Donald Trump tweeted late Friday.
“Iranian govt should respect their people’s rights, including the right to express themselves,” he wrote.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders had made a similar statement. The U.S. State Department in a separate statement urged “all nations to publicly support the Iranian people and their demands for basic rights and an end to corruption.”
Demonstrators chanted anti-government slogans in several cities across Iran on Friday, as price protests turned into the largest wave of demonstrations since nationwide pro-reform unrest in 2009.