Protesters in Iran set fire to the Ayatollah’s ancestral home

Several Video clips surfaced on social media showing the ancestral home of the late founder of the Islamic republic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on fire, with activists saying it was torched by protesters.

Reuters verified the location of two video clips using the distinctive arches and buildings that match the images.

The social media videos show dozens of people cheering as a flash of fire is sparked in a building.

The house of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini -the founding father of the Islamic Revolution- in Khomein Isfahan was set on fire. #Mahsa_Amini#IranRevoIution pic.twitter.com/W1W6WvIsNO

— Farhad Rezaei (@Farhadrezaeii) November 17, 2022

The semi-official Iranian Tasnim news agency, however, denied the Ayatollah’s house was set on fire, saying a small number of people had gathered outside the house.

“The report is a lie,” said the Tasnim news agency, adding that “the doors of the house of the late founder of the great revolution are open to the public.”

Footage of demonstrations Thur night in Khomein, Iran, birthplace of IR founder/leader Khomeini. Acc. videos, IR regime’s plainclothes agents were amongst the crowd, its forces fired teargas at people, Khomeini’s childhood house was set on fire by revolutionaries. @StateDept @CNN pic.twitter.com/k70g8UjzFC

— Ali Javanmardi (@Javanmardi75) November 18, 2022

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini died in 1989. His successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been under intense pressure from nationwide protests calling for his death since the September 16 death of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian Kurdish woman that died in the custody of Iran’s morality police.

Several deaths throughout the country

On Friday, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported pro-government demonstrators in the northeastern city of Mashhad, where two members of the pro-government Basij militia were killed on Thursday.

Two intelligence agents were killed in clashes with protesters on Thursday night, according to the Revolutionary Guards’ news site.

It also said that three other Revolutionary Guards and a Basij member were killed in Tehran, and one Basiji and one member of the police were killed in Kurdistan on Thursday.

Iranian media said two Revolutionary Guards members were killed during unrest in the northwestern city of Bukan and a police colonel died in Sanandaj, the capital of the Kurdistan province late on Thursday.