The Guardian’s report from Iran says that the new wave of protests, which began with the sudden fall in the value of the rial and a jump in the cost of living, spread beyond Tehran within a few days and reached about 32 cities across the country.
The protests, which the newspaper described as the largest in recent years, have led to deadly clashes in some places. According to the same report, at least 10 people have died in violence surrounding the protests, with two new deaths reported overnight.
In the Guardian’s field accounts, the protests began with a group of businessmen closing shops and markets, a movement that initially focused on economic discontent and the erosion of purchasing power, but quickly took on political dimensions. Students have also joined the protests, and slogans such as “Death to the dictator” (referring to Ali Khamenei) and “Women, life, freedom” have been heard in several cities, slogans that evoke a continuation of the same protest literature of the 2022 uprising.
To illustrate the mood on the street, the Guardian cites the account of “Mehnaz,” a 19-year-old computer science student in Tehran who spoke under a pseudonym due to security concerns. She says she was “too young” to be in the streets three years ago when Mahsa Amini died, and her mother had not allowed her to go out with the chanting crowd; so she had only seen from home how the protesters were pushed back with “batons and bullets.” This time, she says, the sudden collapse of the national currency was the “final blow” and since Sunday she has felt that “the moment” had arrived. The student says of the changing psychological climate in society: “Despite my mother’s fears, I joined the protests on Wednesday. After all, they are going to execute us and arrest us… Now people are saying, when they are killing us even when we are not on the street, why should we wait for the “right moment”?”
At the same time, other accounts of increased security presence at universities have been presented. “Reza,” a 20-year-old student who also spoke under a pseudonym, says that on New Year’s Eve, plainclothes and Basij forces “raided” dormitories, interrogated students, and beat some when asked about “protest leaders.” He says that after these events, many classes have been moved online to prevent gatherings and the presence of security forces on campuses has increased. “Participating in these protests means ruining our future; but we have realized that we have no future under this government, so why should we be afraid and hide now?”
In addition to these accounts, human rights organizations have also reported casualties and arrests. The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran announced on Friday that eight protesters had been killed and dozens injured by security forces. The Human Rights Activists News Agency also announced the number of arrests at least 119. The Guardian writes that these claims are being made while the government is simultaneously emphasizing dialogue, but human rights groups say that in some cases deadly force has been used against protesters.
Officially, Iranian President Masoud Pezzekian initially tried to strike a conciliatory tone, saying he had ordered officials to listen to the protesters’ “legitimate demands” and hold talks with protest leaders. But the Guardian says the offer of talks is facing serious skepticism in a climate of distrust following past crackdowns, with many protesters seeing it as an attempt to contain and wear down the protest movement.
The protests come at a time when the Iranian government is, according to the Guardian, in a fragile political and security situation. The 12-day war with Israel in June, which the Guardian reported left more than a thousand dead, damaged the regime’s “impenetrable image”; many Iranians saw Israelis fleeing to missile shelters, while in Iran people were forced to take refuge in metro stations and flee Tehran under the threat of bombing, asking themselves why the country was not better prepared for a war whose signs had long been apparent.
On the other hand, the shadow of foreign pressure has also fallen on domestic developments. The Guardian writes that Donald Trump has twice threatened to take new action against Iran in the midst of the spread of protests: once he said that if Iran rebuilds its missile capabilities, “we will hit them,” and again he warned that if Iran kills protesters, the United States may intervene, saying that it is “ready and armed.” The Islamic Republic’s authorities have also relied on these threats to reinforce the “foreign hand” narrative, and Ali Larijani, the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, has accused the United States and Israel of playing a role in the protests.
But in the Guardian’s field narrative, this same dangerous situation has the opposite meaning for some of the protesters: they say the government is in the weakest position in recent years and that pressure must be increased “right now.” “We are tired, and after June we realized that we should strike when they are weakest, and that time is now… They say you have to strike when the iron is hot, right?” In contrast, a 28-year-old protester told the Guardian that instead of a foreign military attack, he wants the West to bring diplomatic pressure and provide technical assistance so that, for example, the internet remains open in Iran.
The Guardian sees the economic roots of the protests as a combination of “mismanagement” and “international sanctions” that have restricted Iran’s access to frozen assets and foreign currency, fueling inflation. In the same context, it writes that the rial has lost more than 50 percent of its value in the past six months and has fallen more than 200 percent in the past three years. As a result, the cost of living has skyrocketed, with food prices increasing by about half on average compared to the same time last year. The Guardian also writes about a new tax that is set to come into effect from the start of the Iranian New Year on March 21, which has sparked further anger.
However, the Guardian stresses that the current protests are smaller than the 2022 uprising, lack a central figure like Mahsa Amini, and have more dispersed demands, raising questions about their capacity to continue in the face of violent repression. However, many protesters have told the newspaper that they have no intention of backing down and want to apply the “lessons of three years ago” this time “, continuously and strategically.” “We learned that the only way to freedom is to continue protesting and to do so continuously and strategically; something that was lacking before… We knew we wanted the end of this government, and this has been the common goal of all the protests.”