Reza Pahlavi was walking away from a briefing with reporters in Berlin on Thursday when a protester splashed him with red paint. Video showed the exiled crown prince moving away as security personnel overpowered the man and detained him. Pahlavi was not hurt. He waved to supporters, then got into his car.
The attack happened outside Germany’s federal press conference building, The Washington Post reported. Inside, Pahlavi had criticized the ceasefire between the United States and Iran.
“Diplomacy has been given enough chance”
According to the Post, Pahlavi was not invited to meet any government representatives during his Berlin visit. He told reporters the ceasefire rested on an assumption that Iran’s government would change its behavior, and that officials would now be negotiating with people who had suddenly turned pragmatic.
“I don’t see that happening,” he said. “I’m not saying that diplomacy should not be given a chance, but I think diplomacy has been given enough chance.”
He urged Europeans to do more to “support the Iranian people fighting for democracy.” Iran’s government, he said, had executed 19 political prisoners over the previous two weeks and sentenced 20 others to death. “Will the free world do something, or watch the slaughter in silence?” he asked.
A son of the last shah
Pahlavi, 65, is the son of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iran’s last shah, who fell in the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought the clerical regime to power. Millions of Iranians took to the streets to demand his father’s removal, and he was widely hated.
The son has still tried to cast himself as a player in Iran’s future. How much support he has inside the country after nearly 50 years in exile is unclear. He has publicly backed the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran, and he has been among those pressing President Donald Trump to keep his promises to help protesters who were killed in demonstrations in Iran earlier this year.
