President Joe Biden said Friday that he was "stunned" by the mass protests in Iran, which has seen its biggest wave of demonstrations in years after the death of a young woman arrested by the country's morality police.
"I want you to know that we stand with the citizens, the brave women of Iran," he said at a college in Irvine, California, addressing protesters who had gathered holding "Free Iran" signs.
"It stunned me, what it awakened in Iran. It awakened something that I don't think will be quieted for a long, long time," Biden added.
Earlier Friday in Washington, Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with rights activists.
Harris voiced her "support for the brave women and girls leading peaceful protests in Iran to secure equal rights and basic human dignity," the vice president's office said in a statement.
Blinken earlier led a roundtable to listen to overseas Iranians including Nazanin Boniadi, an Iranian-born actress and human rights advocate, as well as writer Roya Hakakian and gender equality activist Sherry Hakimi.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, a hardline cleric, has accused the United States of whipping up the protests to destabilize the Islamic republic.
Blinken said he expected similar accusations that his meeting showed the protests were coming from outside Iran.
"If that's the case, if they genuinely believe that, they fundamentally — fundamentally — do not understand their own people," Blinken said of the Iranian leadership.
"In the wake of Mahsa Amini's death and the spontaneous demonstration of outrage that this has produced, I think we are seeing something that is quite remarkable throughout the country, led primarily by women and young people," Blinken said at the beginning of the meeting.
Blinken was joined by Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, who has championed women's rights, and Rob Malley, the U.S. point man on Iran who has led months of talks in a bid to restore a 2015 nuclear accord.
The protests were sparked by the September 16 death of Mahsa Amini, 22. More than 100 people have been killed since, according to the group Iran Human Rights, based in Oslo, Norway.
The unrest has continued despite what Amnesty International called an "unrelenting brutal crackdown" that included an "all-out attack on child protesters" — leading to the deaths of at least 23 minors.
Biden spoke briefly about the Iran protests ahead of a speech on lowering costs for American families in Irvine, near Los Angeles, which has a large Iranian community.
"Women all over the world are being persecuted in various ways, but they should be able to wear in God's name what they want to wear," Biden said.
Iran "has to end the violence against its own citizens simply exercising their fundamental rights," he added.
"I want to thank you all for speaking out," he told the local Iranian community.
