The Iranian parliament held a closed-door meeting on Sunday to discuss the deadly protests that hit the country last week, while more pro-regime rallies were held in several cities.

Lawmakers interrogated Interior Minister Abdolrahmani Rahmani Fazli, Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi and secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani, parliament's ICANA website reported.

Some voiced concern over the internet controls put in place during the unrest, including a ban on Iran's most popular messaging app, Telegram, which officials said had been used to incite violence.

“The parliament is not in favour of keeping Telegram filtering in place, but it must pledge that it will not be used as a tool by the enemies of the Iranian people,” Behrouz Nemati, spokesman for the parliament's presiding board, wrote on Instagram, which was also temporarily blocked during the unrest.

Many Iranians use Telegram as their main source of news and a way of bypassing the highly restrictive state media, with almost a third of Iran's 80 million people using the app daily.

Some 9,000 online businesses have been disrupted by the blocking, semi-official news agency ISNA reported, quoting a report by the culture ministry's digital media centre.

The protests began on December 28 over economic issues before quickly spiralling out of control and turning against the regime as a whole, leaving 21 dead.

The protests, which vented anger at high unemployment and official corruption, were the largest seen in Iran since the disputed 2009 presidential election, and some demonstrators called for the overthrow of the government.

Hundreds of people have been detained since the protests began. They include around 90 university students, reformist lawmaker Mahmoud Sadeghi was quoted as saying by the semi-official ISNA news agency.

Pro-government rallies were again held in several cities on Sunday, this time in Qazvin, Rasht, Shahr-e Kurd and Yazd.

Tens of thousands of people have participated in similar rallies in the past few days.

The rallies are “the people's response to the rioters and troublemakers and their supporters,” said state television.

It also repeated official claims that the unrest was orchestrated by the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia with the complicity of “anti-revolutionary” groups.

Iran's Guard claims victory against anti-government protests

Iran's Revolutionary Guard today said that the nation and its security forces have ended the wave of unrest linked to anti-government protests that erupted last month.

In a statement on its website, the Guard blamed the unrest on the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia, as well as an exiled opposition group known as the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, and supporters of the monarchy that was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The Guard is a powerful paramilitary force loyal to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Many of the demonstrators protested against the Guard's massive budget, its costly interventions across the region, and against the supreme leader himself.

Iranian lawmakers held a closed session on Sunday in which senior security officials briefed them on the protests and the conditions of the detainees, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.

“It was emphasised that foreign elements, and in particular the United States, played a basic role in forming and manipulating the recent unrest,” IRNA quoted lawmaker Jalal Mirzaei as saying.

The United States and Israel have expressed support for the protests, which began on Dec 28 in Iran's second largest city, Mashhad, but deny allegations of fomenting them.

In recent days, government supporters have held several mass rallies across the country to protest the unrest.