The protests, which began in Tehran last month, have spread to all of Iran’s 31 provinces but have yet to reach the scale of the 2022-3 violence sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini while in custody for allegedly violating Islamic dress codes.
Starting in Tehran with shopkeepers in the Grand Bazaar angered by the sharp slide of the rial currency, the latest protests are now involving others – mostly young men instead of the women and girls who played an important role in the Amini protests.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), reported at least 34 protesters and four security guards killed, and 2,200 arrested during the unrest, which analysts say highlights the growing dismay at the current Shi’ite situation.
Iran faced a nationwide internet blackout on Thursday, which internet watchdog NetBlocks said extended to Friday. It coincided with calls from abroad for more protests from Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last shah who was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic revolution.
“The collapse is not only a tragedy, but one of trust,” said Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC.
Authorities have tried to maintain a two-pronged approach to the unrest, saying protests over the economy are legitimate and will be met with dialogue, while they have met with tear gas protests amid violent street clashes.
Nearly fifty years after the Islamic Revolution, Iran’s religious rulers are struggling to bridge the gap between their priorities and the expectations of a young society.
“I just want to live a peaceful, normal life … Instead, they (the rulers) insist on the nuclear program, support armed groups in the region, and maintain hostility towards the United States,” Mina, 25, told Reuters by phone from Kuhdasht in western Lorestan province.
“Those policies may have made sense in 1979, but not today.” The world has changed,” said the unemployed university graduate.
Protesters took to the streets
A former senior official in the institute’s reform division said the pillars of the Islamic Republic – from enforced sanctions to foreign policy choices – do not resonate with under-30s, roughly half of the population.
“The new generation no longer believes in revolutionary slogans – they want to live freely,” he said.
The hijab, a flashpoint during the Amini protests, is now used selectively. Many Iranian women now openly refuse to wear it in public – breaking with a tradition that has long defined the Islamic Republic.
In ongoing protests, many protesters expressed anger at Tehran’s support for the military in the region, chanting slogans such as “Not Gaza, not Lebanon, my life is Iran,” showing frustration with the organization’s priorities.
Tehran’s state has been weakened by Israel’s attacks on its patrons – from Hamas in Gaza to Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and militants in Iraq – and the ouster of Iran’s closest ally, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
In a video shared by X and confirmed by Reuters, protesters in the second most populous city of Mashhad, in the northeast, were seen pulling down an Iranian flag from a flagpole and tearing it down.
People clashed with security forces in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar and jubilant protesters marched in Abdanan, a city in the southwestern province of Ilam, other videos confirmed by Reuters this week showed.
In a video from the northeastern city of Gonabad, which Reuters could not confirm, young men were seen running out of a mosque to join a crowd of protesters who cheered them on for rebelling against the clerics.
There is no easy way out for Iran’s supreme leader
Vatanka from the Washington-Middle East Institute said Iran’s clerical system has survived repeated cycles of protest through repression and concession tactics but the strategy is reaching its limits.
“Change now seems inevitable; the fall of the regime is possible but not guaranteed,” he said.
In other countries in the region such as Syria, Libya and Iraq, long-time leaders have fallen after a combination of protests and military intervention.
US President Donald Trump said he may help the Iranian protesters if the security forces fire at them.
“We’re locked and loaded and ready to go,” he tweeted, without elaborating, on January 2, seven months after Israeli and US forces bombed Iranian nuclear sites in a 12-day war.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, facing one of the most difficult moments of his decades-long rule, responded by vowing that Iran “will not surrender to the enemy.”
The former Iranian official said there is no easy way out for the 86-year-old leader, whose decades-old policies of building proxies, evading sanctions and developing nuclear and missile programs appear unfounded.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has praised the protests, calling them “an important moment when the Iranian people take their future into their own hands”.
Inside Iran, opinions are divided on whether foreign military intervention is imminent or possible and even staunch critics of the government question its desirability.
“Enough is enough. This regime has ruled my country for 50 years. Look at the result. We are poor, isolated and frustrated,” said a 31-year-old man in central Isfahan who did not want to be identified.
Asked if he supports foreign intervention, he replied: “No.
The exiled opponents of the Islamic Republic, themselves divided, think their moment to topple the institution may be near and call for more protests. But it is not certain that they enjoy any support within the country.
