How and why are protests spreading in Iran?
Protesters in Isfahan join the mass protests across Iran. Screenshot from video uploaded to X by @iranhrs99. Fair use.
This article was originally published in The New Arab on January 2, 2026. This edited version is republished on Global Voices as part of a content partnership agreement.
Small protests that began last Sunday in Tehran Grand Bazaar, at the heart of the Iranian capital, over another sharp fall in the national currency, have spread to several other cities, with reports of deaths and injuries in confrontations with police and security forces.
On December 31, the epicentre of the anti-regime protests was the southern city of Fasa, where demonstrators attacked the governor’s office. On the same day, according to the Revolutionary Guard, one pro-regime Basij militia member was killed in the western city of Kuhdasht in a confrontation with the protestors.
The next day, local media reported that three protestors were killed in the small western town of Azna, in Lorestan province, as they attempted to enter a police headquarters.
Before Fasa, protests were also reported in Isfahan, Malard, Hamedan, Arak and Qeshm. Iranian authorities have not released official figures on arrests, but videos and eyewitness accounts show clashes between protestors and security forces.
Currency collapse
The latest wave of protests began in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, a traditional stronghold of conservative and religious groups. However, the Iranian rial fell to a record low on Sunday, December 28, prompting some traders to close their shops in protest against worsening economic conditions, with the US dollar trading at 1,450,000 Iranian rials on the open market.
The rate continued to change sharply over the following days, making it hard for traders to set prices. As a result, the bazaar strike continued on Monday and Tuesday.
A trader in Tehran’s carpet market, who asked not to be named for security reasons, said the lack of stability made business impossible.
“Trade needs a minimum level of stability, which does not exist right now,” he told “The New Arab.”
He added that the costs of raw materials, wages, transport, rent, and other expenses are all linked to the dollar exchange rate, and rapid changes make pricing and sales impossible.
The trader rejected claims by government-linked media that shop closures were forced by “agitators,” saying traders themselves chose to draw officials’ attention.
“Even if we keep our shops open, we cannot work,” he said. “Because of pressure from security forces, the bazaar will likely reopen on Saturday, but we will only sit in our shops and not trade until the exchange rate becomes stable.”
Rising unrest
The government responded to the strike by closing public offices and commercial centres in Tehran and several other cities on Wednesday. Officials cited cold weather as the reason. Iran’s weekend falls on Thursday and Friday, effectively keeping markets closed until Saturday.
On Tuesday, officials met with trade groups’ leaders, promising tax breaks, a pause on tax fines and access to subsidised foreign currency for imports in an effort to calm traders.
The same day, Mohammad Reza Farzin resigned as governor of the Central Bank of Iran. He had taken the role in December 2022 after Ali Salehabadi stepped down following a sharp fall in the rial. At that time, the dollar was trading at 435,000 rials.
An economist who, in an interview that year, warned that changing central bank leadership would not stop the rial’s decline, repeated the same view after Farzin’s resignation.
“It does not matter who leads the central bank,” he explained. “As long as corruption controls the economy, this situation will continue.”
He said international sanctions on Iran’s oil, gas and petrochemical exports, as well as the risk of a new conflict between Iran and Israel, were adding to economic instability, currency weakness and inflation.
He also said political isolation has hurt Iran’s economy and increased public anger.
“People are no longer protesting only for political or personal freedoms,” he said. “Many cannot afford food for their families, and responding to them with riot police will not solve the problem.”
The economist said it was unclear whether the protests would spread further, but noted that the Tehran Bazaar strike was likely to end due to the bazaar’s close ties to the regime.
“The bazaar has long supported the religious and conservative system,” he said. “For this reason, President Masoud Pezeshkian’s government and bazaar leaders are likely to reach an agreement. But whether protests grow will depend on how harshly protestors are suppressed and how united opposition groups remain.”
1 comment
In the United States, police not only have the right to use deadly force, but dozens of people are killed each year in direct confrontations with law enforcement – figures that have been repeatedly confirmed by independent human rights organizations. Yet in Western media narratives, this level of violence is framed as “law enforcement.”
In Europe, too, violent police responses to protest rallies are widely accepted. Chasing protesters to hospitals, making quick arrests, and imposing severe restrictions are not hidden; they are presented as signs of state authority. The law in these countries is uncompromising, even when protesters are unarmed.
Iranian police do not have the right to shoot
In contrast, Iranian police operate under a set of strict legal and operational restrictions that limit the use of firearms to very exceptional circumstances. The level of violent police confrontations in Iran is significantly lower than in many Western countries, yet this fact never makes the headlines of hostile media coverage.
In the dominant anti-Iranian narrative, any action by law enforcement is immediately labeled a “bloody crackdown,” even when no weapons are used and the police officers themselves are the victims of violence. The facts are irrelevant here; what matters is the construction of a dark image for media consumption.
What is particularly striking is that these same anti-Iranian groups fully understand the “logic of cost” when operating abroad. Monarchists and other regime change advocates know exactly what the consequences of confronting Western police are—from immediate arrest to criminal records and long-term legal consequences.
Yet when it comes to Iran, they freely encourage violence against police and even the killing of security forces on social media. Why? Because they are sure that the Western media will not condemn such violence against the Iranian police, but will portray it as “justified” or even “heroic.”
Now, when the police have no weapons, there is no repression, so how did the story come together? The fact that the media does not dare to publish is that on Monday, the people themselves came out in all cities and held demonstrations in the millions against the rioters! Yes! The people themselves came to the scene, and even those who were protesting the economy came to the scene and suppressed the riots. We are the people of awareness. We protest the government’s actions, but we love Ayatollah Khamenei.
No media outlet showed the millions of people who came to the funeral of the martyrs of security and the suppression of the riots.
The law is strict everywhere, but narratives are formed based on power. Western police, despite their overt violence, are portrayed as symbols of order, while Iranian police, despite their restraint, are portrayed as instruments of repression. This contradiction arises not from differences in law, but from a war of narratives – a war in which truth is the first casualty.
این حرف های من به عنوان یک ایرانی است.
اگر پرده ی سانسور های خبری را کنار بزنید ، حقیقت آشکار خواهد بود.
It would be very embarrassing if you didn’t reveal the truth.
The judgment is yours.