At least 36 people have died in violence linked to the latest wave of protests in Iran, activists said, on the tenth day of demonstrations that have turned anti-government, although they are rooted in citizens' dissatisfaction with the economic situation.
The US-based Activists for Human Rights in Iran news agency said more than 1.200 people were arrested during the protests that began on December 28 and have spread to more than 270 locations in 27 of Iran's 31 provinces.
The organization, which receives data from a network of activists in Iran, announced that 30 protesters, four children and two members of the Iranian security forces have been killed in the past nine days, the Associated Press (AP) reports.
Iran's Fars news agency, which is considered close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, reported late last night that 45 members of the elite unit and around 250 police officers were injured in the demonstrations.
The agency reported tonight that one person was killed and several others were wounded in clashes after an angry crowd, who had come from the funeral of two protesters, vandalized three banks in Malekshahi, in the western province of Ilam. The province, which is predominantly populated by Kurds and Lurs, is particularly hard-hit by the economic situation.
In Tehran, clashes broke out between protesters and police at the Grand Bazaar, the centuries-old center of Iranian economic and political life. In the Grand Bazaar, a maze of interconnected alleys, courtyards, and buildings, protesters sat on the floor in an aisle in front of security forces, who eventually fired tear gas and dispersed the crowd.
Iran's theocratic government has not yet released data on the unrest, but it has nevertheless acknowledged that there are some - late last night, Iranian President Masoud Pazakhstani ordered the Ministry of Interior to form a special team for a "full investigation" of the events in Ilam province, after videos were published on social media showing security forces shooting at protesters.
The Iranian president also confirmed that there had been an "incident at a hospital in the city of Ilam." One of the released videos shows security forces storming a hospital in the city of Ilam, where activists say wounded protesters have taken refuge, the BBC reports.
The attack on the hospital was condemned by the US State Department, which characterized the incident as a "crime against humanity."
"The raid on hospital wards, the beating of medical personnel, and the attack on the wounded with tear gas and ammunition is a clear crime against humanity. Hospitals are not battlefields," the State Department stated on the X network.
The rising death toll from protests is raising the prospect of some form of U.S. intervention in Iran, the AP reports. U.S. President Donald Trump warned Tehran on Friday that the United States would "come to the aid" of Iranian protesters if the government killed them while they were peacefully protesting.
While it is unclear whether or how Trump will intervene, Iranian officials immediately reacted angrily to his comments, threatening to launch strikes on US troops in the Middle East. Trump's comments took on added significance a day later, on January 3, when US troops invaded Venezuela and captured its President Nicolas Maduro, a long-time ally of Tehran.
The latest protests are the most widespread in Iran since 2022, when mass demonstrations erupted across the country over the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who was arrested by morality police for not wearing a hijab in accordance with regulations. However, the latest protests have not yet been as widespread or intense as the demonstrations over the death of Mahsa Amini, which witnesses say was the result of police brutality. United Nations investigators have also concluded that her death was the result of physical violence.
The protests erupted on December 28, when vendors took to the streets of Tehran to express anger over another sharp drop in the value of the Iranian currency, the rial, against the US dollar. Students soon joined the protests, which began to spread to other cities.
The riyal sank to a record low today and inflation has soared to 40 percent after the United Nations reimposed sanctions on Iran in September over the country's nuclear program. The 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June last year, which ended with US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, also contributed to the worsening economic situation.
Iran's central bank has ended a preferential exchange rate between the dollar and the rial for all goods except medicines and wheat amid the protests. The Iranian government had offered the rate to importers and producers in recent months in an attempt to ensure the flow of basic goods despite international sanctions. But many companies have taken advantage of the exchange rate differential and made ever-increasing profits while ordinary people's savings have rapidly lost value.
Although the protests initially focused on economic issues, demonstrators soon began chanting anti-government slogans, according to the BBC. Among other things, they chanted "Death to the dictator," referring to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and "Pahlavi returns," alluding to exiled opposition figure Reza Pahlavi, son of the former Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1941-1979).
The scale of the latest wave of protests is not yet known. Iranian state media has provided little information about the demonstrations, while footage that has appeared online is brief and unclear. Journalists in Iran generally face restrictions, as they need permits to travel around the country, and threats.
It is certain that the protests are not calming down for now, even after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday that "the rioters must be put in their place."
There have been several waves of protests in Iran over the past 50 years.
In the run-up to the 1979 Islamic Revolution, students, oil company employees, and others protested, demanding political freedoms. These mass demonstrations put intense pressure on the seriously ill autocratic Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who fled the country in January 1979. During his rule, Iran was one of the United States' main allies in the Middle East. The US CIA even instigated a coup in 1953 that solidified his rule.
The revolution ended in February 1979, when the monarchy was abolished and a hardline Shiite theocracy was established under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. In November 1979, students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, demanding the extradition of Pahlavi, and took 66 Americans hostage. The hostage crisis lasted 444 days and led to the severance of diplomatic relations between Iran and the United States.
Khomeini's new government executed thousands of people. Due to the radical crackdown on dissent, but also because of the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), there were no mass demonstrations for years.
For most of the 1990s, there were only sporadic protests in a few cities in Iran, mainly due to economic problems and skyrocketing prices.
In July 1999, mass student protests erupted in Tehran over the closure of a reformist newspaper. After a brutal nighttime attack by security forces on students, demonstrations spread to university campuses in a number of cities. However, the protests were quickly suppressed by security forces. Several students were killed, dozens were injured, and hundreds were arrested.
In June 2007, a day of violent protests erupted in Tehran and other cities across Iran after populist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's measures to restrict oil imports led to long lines at gas stations. Protesters set several gas stations and banks on fire.
The largest protests in Iran to date erupted in the summer of 2009. Millions of Iranians protested for months in major cities across the country, challenging the hardline Ahmadinejad's victory in the presidential election. The demonstrations were crushed in early 2010 by a brutal crackdown that left dozens dead and thousands arrested, as well as restrictions on the internet - access to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and thousands of websites was blocked.
In the following years, there were sporadic protests, primarily due to economic hardship, until in September 2022, millions again took to the streets across the country, expressing anger and a desire for change after the death of Mahsa Amini. During the months-long repression, more than 500 people were killed and 22.000 were arrested.
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