The New York-based Center For Human Rights In Iran has noted that "the number of arrests reported by official sources between December 28, 2017, and January 1, 2018, has exceeded 1,000. The actual number is likely much higher as many arrests have gone unreported."
Here's some of the VOA interview with U.S. Vice President Mike Pence. In it, he says international economic sanctions on Iran are "emboldening" people to join antigovernment protests there and expresses hope that President Donald Trump's message of support might be as resonant in Iran as the late U.S. President Ronald Reagan's "evil empire" speech was in the Soviet Union. Pence was speaking to VOA contributor Greta Van Susteren.
Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi has given an interview to Saudi-owned pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat that's being quoted from by international agencies.
Here's Reuters:
Iranian Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi urged the people of Iran to engage in civil disobedience and press on with nationwide protests that are posing the boldest challenge to its leaders since pro-reform unrest in 2009....
London-based Ebadi, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 and one of a number of exiled critics of Iran’s leadership, called on Iranians to stop paying water, gas and electricity bills and taxes.
She also urged them to withdraw their money from state banks to exert economic pressure on the government and so force it to stop resorting to violence and to meet their demands.
“If the government has not listened to you for 38 years, your role has come to ignore what the government says to you now,” the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat quoted Ebadi as saying in an interview.