Black Friday (1978)

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Black Friday was named after the protests that occurred on September 8, 1978 (17 Shahrivar 1357 AP) in Zhaleh Square Tehran, Iran. The Iranian Government declared martial law in response to protests against the Shah's Rule. According to the anti-government sources, the military of Iran used deadly force, including tanks and helicopter gunships, to break up the largely peaceful demonstrators. Unsubstantiated reports at the time put the death toll at 88 to 89 demonstrators (including three women) ^[1] ^[2] ^[3] killed.

The clerical leadership announced that "thousands have been massacred by Zionist troops."^[4] Official accounts dealing with the history of the Islamic revolution write of "15,000 dead and wounded". However the non-Persian-speaking troops were later reported to have been Iranian ethnic Kurds, not Israelis, who had been fired on by snipers. According to Emad al-Din Baghi, a former researcher at the Martyrs Foundation (Bonyad Shahid) hired "to make sense of the data" on those killed fighting the Shah's regime, 64 killed were killed in Jaleh Square on Black Friday, among them two females – one woman and a young girl. On the same day in other parts of the capital a total of 24 people died in clashes with martial law forces, among them one female. ^[5] In the mean time, the appearance of government brutality alienated much of the rest of the Iranian people as well as the Shah's allies abroad.

Protests continued for another four months. A general strike in October shut down the petroleum industry that was essential to the administration's survival, "sealing the Shah's fate".^[6] Support for the Shah, in Iran and abroad, dissolved clearing the way for the Iranian Revolution, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, which saw the abolition of the monarchy less than a year later.