What we know about the protests sweeping Iran

Protests in Iran over the country’s economic conditions, which broke out in late December 2025, have snowballed into a broader challenge to the clerical rulers who have governed Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Here is what we know about the protests in Iran so far.

What are the protests in Iran about?

Protests broke out over soaring prices in Iran on December 28, 2025 after the rial plunged to a record low against the United States dollar in late December.

The protest started with shopkeepers in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar who shuttered their shops and began demonstrating. It then spread to other provinces of Iran.

On Monday, the rial was trading at more than 1.4 million to $1, a sharp decline from around 700,000 a year earlier in January 2025 and around 900,000 in mid-2025. The plummeting currency has triggered steep inflation, with food prices an average of 72 percent higher than last year. Annual inflation is currently around 40 percent.

Iran’s economy is ailing for several reasons. The country fought a 12-day war with Israel in June 2025, which resulted in infrastructural damage in several Iranian cities.

Additionally, in September 2025, the United Nations re-imposed sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme when the UN Security Council voted against permanently lifting economic sanctions on Iran.

In December, Iran introduced a new tier in its national fuel subsidy system, effectively raising the price of what had been some of the world’s cheapest petrol or gasoline and adding to the financial strain on households.

Officials will now reassess fuel prices every three months, opening the door to further hikes. At the same time, food prices are set to climb after the Central Bank recently scrapped a preferential, subsidised dollar-rial rate for all imports except medicine and wheat.

“If only the government, instead of just focusing on fuel, could bring down the price of other goods,” taxi driver Majid Ebrahimi told Al Jazeera in late December. “The prices of dairy products have gone up six times this year and other goods more than 10 times.”

While chants by protesters initially focused on the ailing economy, they have switched to opposition to the clerical establishment in Iran. Some protesters have also begun chanting in support of Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of deposed Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and the heir to the former Pahlavi monarchy.

Many supporters of Pahlavi are calling for a return to the monarchy, although Pahlavi himself says he favours holding a referendum to determine what type of government structure Iranians want.

After Mohammad Mosaddegh, Iran’s prime minister who was democratically elected in 1951, nationalised the British-controlled oil industry in Iran, he was overthrown in a 1953 coup backed by the US and the United Kingdom to secure Western oil interests. A repressive royal rule was reinstated until 1979, when Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last shah of Iran, fled the country as the Islamic revolution took hold. He died in Egypt in 1980.

“There were chants in his [Pahlavi’s] support on the streets of Iran among other chants in this round of protests,” Maryam Alemzadeh, an associate professor in the history and politics of Iran at the University of Oxford, told Al Jazeera.

Demands for democracy and opposition to the Islamic government’s strict laws have been building for some time, especially since the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, in police custody in 2022.

In September 2022, Amini was arrested in Tehran by Iran’s notorious morality police for alleged non-compliance with Iran’s strict dress code. She was taken to a re-education centre where she collapsed. She died in hospital a few days later.

Where are the protests happening?

The initial protests were staged by shopkeepers in Tehran angered by rising prices. However, protests have now become more widespread. A large, fragmented opposition base is emerging both inside Iran and within Iranian diaspora communities in other countries.

Iran’s Fars News Agency said “limited” demonstrations were held on Sunday night in Tehran’s Navvab and Saadat Abad neighbourhoods.

Protesters also gathered in the cities of Hafshejan and Junqan in the southwestern province of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, and a separate rally took place in Taybad county in the northeastern province of Razavi Khorasan.

Fars reported that security forces moved in and broke up those gatherings, while the rest of the country’s cities and provinces remained calm overnight.

Protests have also spread to other countries where there are significant Iranian communities, including the US, UK, Germany, France, Turkiye, and Pakistan, in solidarity with the protesters in Iran.

How many people have died in the protests?

More than 100 security personnel have been killed in recent days, state media has reported, while opposition activists say the death toll is higher and includes hundreds of protesters.

Al Jazeera cannot independently verify these figures.

Experts fear that the death toll could be far higher. “Minimal news that makes it out of the total internet shutdown signifies that thousands of citizens might have been killed by government forces,” Alemzadeh said.

Is the internet down?

Iran’s internet blackout entered its fourth day on Monday, according to watchdog NetBlocks.

It remains unclear whether the internet was actively blocked by the government. However, in a post on social media on Thursday, NetBlocks said the blackout follows “a series of escalating digital censorship measures targeting protests across the country and hinders the public’s right to communicate at a critical moment”.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told foreign diplomats in Tehran on Monday that the internet would soon be restored in Iran, adding that the government was coordinating with the security establishment on the issue.

The foreign minister said connectivity would also be restored to embassies and government ministries.

Is the US involved in the protests?

Since protests began in December, US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened that Washington could intervene militarily in Iran if there is a violent crackdown.

Araghchi alleged that nationwide protests have “turned violent and bloody to give an excuse” for Trump to intervene militarily.

He added that Trump’s warning of military action against Tehran should ‌protests turn ‌violent had motivated “terrorists” ⁠to target protesters and security forces ‌to encourage foreign intervention. “We are ready for war but also for dialogue,” he said.

Araghchi also said that the Iranian authorities have gathered video footage of weapons being distributed to protesters, adding that they will soon release confessions from detainees.

The demonstrations had been “stoked and fuelled” by foreign elements, he said, noting security forces would “hunt down” those responsible.

What will happen next?

Alemzadeh said an uprising could escalate in Iran if protesters’ demands are not addressed.

“Protesters have been faced with repression that is unprecedented in brutality, even with the Islamic Republic’s notorious standard,” she said.

She added: “The grievances, however, are not going to be quieted this time around.”

Alemzadeh said that life for many in Iran has become intolerable under the current economic conditions, which many see as caused by corruption, mismanagement and international sanctions. Additionally, Iranians have been denied freedom of speech and lifestyle for decades, she added.

“Even if this round of protests is repressed by extreme violence, another could emerge in no time until a radical shift occurs,” she said.

“This might be initiated domestically by factions of the political elite, by marginalising [Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei and destroying the oligarchic economy, effectively abandoning the ‘Islamic’ part of the republic and its beneficiaries, or through US/Israeli intervention, which is likely to lead to chaos and more – but perhaps different – grievances for Iranians.”