The US-based son of Iran’s ousted shah urged Iranian government workers and security forces on Sunday to join the swelling protest movement in the Islamic republic.
“Employees of state institutions, as well as members of the armed and security forces, have a choice: stand with the people and become allies of the nation, or choose complicity with the murderers of the people,” Reza Pahlavi posted on social media after a rights group said Iranian authorities were carrying out “mass killing” to suppress the unrest.
Pahlavi, who has emerged as an opposition figurehead, also called for replacing the flags outside of Iranian embassies with the pre-Islamic revolution one.
“The time has come for them to be adorned with Iran’s national flag, in place of the disgraceful banner of the Islamic republic,” he said.
In London, protesters managed to swap out the Iranian embassy flag over the weekend, hoisting in its place the tri-colored banner used under the last shah, whose rule ended with the 1979 revolution. (AFP)