DUBAI         -        Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called on Wednesday for the release of any unarmed and innocent people detained during two weeks of sometimes violent protests against gasoline price hikes.

The unrest, which began on Nov. 15 after the government abruptly raised fuel prices by as much as 300%, spread to more than 100 cities and towns and turned political as young and working-class protesters demanded clerical leaders step down.  “Religious and Islamic clemency should be shown and those innocent people who protested against petrol price hikes and were not armed ... should be released,” Rouhani said in a televised speech.

Iranian Supreme Leader Aytollah Ali Khamenei, the highest authority in Iran, also said Islamic clemency should be shown, in comments cited by the official IRNA news agency on Wednesday. Tehran’s clerical rulers have blamed “thugs” linked to its opponents in exile and the country’s main foreign foes - the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia - for the unrest.

“The aim of our enemies was to endanger the existence of the Islamic Republic by igniting riots in Iran...But America and the Zionist regime (Israel) lack political wisdom about Iran and Iranians,” the commander-in-chief of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards Hossein Salami, said in a televised speech.

Tehran has given no official death toll, but Amnesty International said on Monday it had documented the deaths of at least 208 protesters, making the disturbances the bloodiest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

A lawmaker said last week that about 7,000 protesters had been arrested. The judiciary has rejected the figures. The Intelligence Ministry said last week that at least eight people linked to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had been arrested during the unrest, which was snuffed out last week by a security crackdown.

The struggle of ordinary Iranians to make ends meet has become harder since last year when US President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from Tehran’s nuclear deal with six world powers and reimposed sanctions that have further crippled Iran’s oil-based economy. “If America lifts the sanctions, we are ready to talk and negotiate, even at the level of heads of the 5+1 countries (major powers),” Rouhani said.

Iran has reacted to Washington’s “maximum pressure” campaign by scaling back its commitments to limits on its enrichment of uranium and warned of further distancing from the nuclear pact if Europe fails to shield Tehran’s economy from US penalties. Washington has ruled out lifting sanctions unless Iran agrees to stricter curbs on its nuclear activity, ends its ballistic missile programme and its regional proxy wars.