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.
From our newsroom:
Pence Says U.S. Is 'Natural Ally' For Iranians Seeking Freedom
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence is calling on young Iranians involved in street protests against the government in Tehran to view the United States as a "natural ally" in their quest for freedom and democracy.
In an interview at the White House with Voice of America on January 3, Pence said "the American people stand with freedom-loving people in Iran and around the world, and I think this is a very hopeful moment."
"My goal…really my prayer, is that the people of Iran -- a youthful population, a well-educated population -- understand that the United States of America, the people of this country, are their natural ally. We want to see them achieve a free and democratic future. We want to see them step away from a regime that continues to menace the world."
Pence repeatedly contrasted the support for Iranian protesters being offered by U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration to the silence at the White House when antigovernment protests broke out in Iran in 2009, early in the presidency of Barack Obama.
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More on that news about three deaths from the intelligence forces:
In an unconfirmed report, the semiofficial Mehr news agency said three members of Iran's intelligence forces had been killed in clashes in the western city of Piranshahr.
However, Mehr later reported a statement by Iran's hard-line Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as saying the clashes were along the border with Iraqi Kurdistan and not thought to be related to the protests.