This is the moment a protester climbed onto the balcony of the Iranian embassy and stripped it of its flag amid anti-regime demonstrations.
Footage shared widely on social media showed the activist tearing up the regime’s red, green and white flag in front of a crowd gathered outside the diplomatic mission in Kensington.
He then replaced it with the flag used before the Islamic revolution featuring a lion and a sun, which has since become a symbol of protests.
Additional officers have been deployed to the embassy, which overlooks Hyde Park, to ‘prevent disorder’, Metropolitan Police confirmed.
The force said it had arrested two protesters for aggravated trespass and assaulting an emergency worker but that there had been no ‘serious disorder’.
One individual is also sought in relation to a trespass offence.
The Iranian embassy was the site of major siege in 1980 – one year after the Islamic republic took shape – which saw six armed men take 26 people hostage.
The men were Iranian-Arabs campaigning for the independence of the south western province of Khuzestan.
All but one of the hostages were rescued by SAS soldiers six days into the siege, with five out of six hostage-takers killed in the operation.
Protests erupted across Iran including the capital Tehran at the end of last month, representing the largest challenges to the state under the rule of supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
The Ayatollahcondemned world leaders as ‘troublemakers’, accusing them of trying to please Donald Trump.
The US president had promised to come to the aid of Iranians if the regime continued to ‘violently kill’ protesters.
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Internet and international calls have been curtailed across the nation on Thursday as part of a crackdown on dissent, which has seen at least 62 people killed and 2,300 detained so far according to human rights observers.
Unrest was triggered on December 28 in Tehran by a strike of shopkeepers and merchants, and following an ongoing cost of living squeeze as the currency fell.
The following day the head of the central bank resigned from his position as police used teargas to break up protests.
Among figures hoping to shape the Middle Eastern country’s future is exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who has lived away from Iran for 50 years.
Mr Pahlavi, 65, suggested he may return to the country soon and urged government opponents to take city centres in order to oust the theocratic regime.
In a joint letter with German chancellor Friedrich Merz and French president Emmanuel Macron, Sir Keir Starmer called on Iranian authorities to ‘refrain from violence’ and ‘uphold fundamental rights’ of citizens.
Iran’s police force however vowed to take ‘decisive action’ against what it branded ‘terrorists’, warning people to ‘take care’ of their children.
It said in a statement reported by the Tasnim agency: ‘Given the presence of terrorist groups and armed individuals in some gatherings and their plans to cause deaths, we advise families to take care of their youth and teenager.
‘In order to protect people’s lives and property, non-compromise and decisive action against terrorists is on the agenda.’
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