（CNN） Thousands of women and girls took part in a rally called “Dedicated Girls of Iran” held in the center of Iran’s capital Tehran on the 17th.
According to Iranian state-run Press TV, the women and girls “swore allegiance to the new leadership of the Islamic revolution and expressed their readiness to defend the country.”
The rally coincided with Iran’s Girl’s Day and the anniversary of the birth of the daughter of the Islamic prophet.
A woman carrying a rifle has a portrait of Iran’s new supreme leader Mojtaba on her chest./Majid Saeedi/Getty Images
Video broadcast by state media showed women holding guns, holding flags and shouting anti-American slogans.
“We’re here to defeat America’s Zionist enemies through unity and cooperation. Death to America,” said the girl, who was speaking to the camera on the street with a Press TV microphone in her hand.
A demonstrator holds up a portrait of Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike/Majid Saeedi/Getty Images
In Iran, demonstrations in support of the regime have been held almost every day since February 28, when Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei was killed in a joint US-Israeli attack. Ayatollah Khamenei has been running an authoritarian political system for about 40 years.
Pro-regime rallies are usually organized in coordination with the Iranian government and stand in sharp contrast to the government’s violent crackdown on anti-regime protests. Thousands of anti-regime protesters, including women, were killed or detained by Iranian security forces in January, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). CNN has not been able to independently verify this claim.
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