Exiled crown prince renews mass protest, posing a test for Iran

People in Iran's capital shouted from their homes and rallied in the street Thursday night after a call by the country's exiled crown prince for a mass demonstration, witnesses said, a new escalation in the protests that have spread nationwide across the Islamic Republic.

- BY JON GAMBRELL

IRANIAN DISSIDENTS gather in the streets of Kermanshah on Wednesday. Violence surrounding such demonstrations has killed 41 people, and 2,270 others have been detained, according to a human rights group.

(KAMRAN Middle East Images)

Internet access and telephone lines in Iran cut out immediately after the protests began.The protest represented the first test of whether the Iranian public could be swayed by Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, whose fatally ill father fled Iran just before the country's 1979 Islamic Revolution. Demonstrations have included cries in support of the shah, something that could bring a death sentence in the past but now underlines the anger fueling the protests that began over Iran's ailing economy.

Thursday saw a continuation of the demonstrations that popped up in cities and rural towns across Iran on Wednesday. More markets and bazaars shut down in support of the protesters.

So far, violence around the demonstrations has killed at least 41 people and more than 2,270 others have been detained, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.