Iran has been hit by its largest protests in about three years, with demonstrations driven by economic hardship spreading from Tehran’s bazaars to universities and provincial towns, and with reports of several deaths as clashes intensified on Thursday, 1 January 2026.
The unrest began on Sunday, 28 December 2025, when shopkeepers and traders protested over a sharp fall in the rial and the rapid rise in prices. Merchants in parts of Tehran closed shops, and strikes were reported in commercial districts, including around the Grand Bazaar, as the currency hit record lows on the open market.
By Tuesday, 30 December, videos posted online and media reporting indicated that protests had moved into higher education, with students demonstrating at several universities in Tehran and other cities. A heightened security presence was reported at key junctions in the capital and near some campuses.
A short video of a lone protester sitting in the street and refusing to move as police approached circulated widely on social media during the week. Some observers likened the image to historic acts of individual defiance, although such descriptions reflect commentary rather than any formal designation by authorities or organisers.
On Thursday, Iranian media and rights groups reported fatalities as the unrest turned violent in several provinces. The semi-official Fars news agency said three protesters were killed and 17 people were injured during an attack on a police station in Lorestan province. Fars reported that “rioters” entered a police headquarters, clashed with officers and set fire to several police vehicles.
Reports of deaths also emerged from other areas. Reuters said Fars and the Kurdish rights group Hengaw reported fatalities in Lordegan, in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province, while authorities confirmed one death in Kuhdasht, a city in Lorestan. Hengaw also reported another death in Isfahan province in central Iran. Reuters said it could not immediately verify some of the claims made by rights groups and activist outlets.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said a member of the Basij, its affiliated volunteer paramilitary force, had been killed in Kuhdasht and that 13 other Basij members were wounded. Hengaw, however, published a separate account identifying the dead man as Amirhesam Khodayarifard and alleging he was shot by Iranian security forces during protests, disputing the state narrative.
An activist news site, HRANA, reported further demonstrations on Thursday, including in Marvdasht in Fars province, and said detentions had taken place in multiple western provinces, including Kermanshah, Khuzestan and Hamedan. Such reporting is difficult to corroborate independently given restrictions on media access and the pace of events.
Officials have combined security measures with an offer of talks. Government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said on Thursday that authorities would hold direct dialogue with representatives of trade unions and merchants, without giving details. Reuters reported that the government had offered dialogue alongside its security response as the protests expanded.
The authorities also declared a nationwide holiday on Wednesday, 31 December, citing cold weather, a move that shut down much of the country and may have reduced the scope for gatherings in some places.
Sara Bazoobandi, a non-resident research fellow at the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University, said the protests had been “anticipated” after months of public discontent, and argued that the speed of inflation and devaluation had acted as the immediate trigger. She said the early momentum came from shopkeepers in sectors dependent on imports and dollar pricing, including traders in mobile phones and electronic goods, whose margins are closely tied to the exchange rate.
Bazoobandi said the president’s public calls for dialogue should be read in the context of limited executive power in Iran’s political system, where key decisions on security and strategic policy sit with institutions beyond the elected government. In her view, the structural drivers of Iran’s economic crisis include sanctions linked to foreign policy, internal corruption, and policy choices, limiting what the administration can deliver quickly.
Iran’s economy has been under pressure for years, principally due to US and Western sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear programme. The strain has been compounded by Israeli and US air strikes in June that targeted Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile infrastructure and members of the military leadership, following a 12-day conflict with Israel.
The scale of the economic shock is central to the current unrest. Reuters reported that the rial lost around half its value against the dollar during 2025 and that official inflation reached 42.5 per cent in December, figures that have fed public anger over living standards and uncertainty for businesses dependent on imports.
Iran has seen repeated protest waves in recent years, ranging from demonstrations over prices and water shortages to nationwide unrest over women’s rights and political freedoms. The latest protests have, so far, combined a clear economic trigger with widening participation among merchants and students, while Thursday’s reports of deaths and attacks on security facilities suggest a sharper phase that could shape the authorities’ next steps.
