In Iran, another protest brings a new moment of reckoning

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said in a social media post that he had asked the interior minister to heed the “legitimate demands” of the protesters. A spokesperson said that a dialogue mechanism would be established.

Of the many trends that came to define 2025, one stood out: People’s power. The year witnessed a remarkable string of protests across Asia and Africa — the uprising in Bangladesh in July-August 2024 was the first — as grievances over authoritarianism and living standards spilled onto the streets. As the “year of the protest” drew to a close, demonstrations erupted in another country that is no stranger to mass unrest: Iran. Beginning December 28, there have been agitations in response to soaring inflation, rising food prices, and a sharp depreciation of the rial, which have spread from Tehran to major cities like Isfahan, Shiraz, and Mashhad. Over the past five days, the demands of the protesters have expanded beyond economic troubles to calls for freedom and the overthrow of the theocratic state.

The protests are reminiscent of a dark and recent chapter in Iran’s post-1979 history when it faced a moment of reckoning over the custodial death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who had been accused of violating dress codes by the notorious morality police. While the people’s movement in 2022, like the one before it in 2019 sparked by rising fuel prices, was brutally suppressed with at least 550 people killed, it severely eroded the legitimacy of the Ali Khamenei regime. The current turbulence is the largest since then and challenges a government already weakened by renewed Western sanctions and the fallout from a brief but damaging 12-day conflict with Israel last year. Reports indicate that shopkeepers, workers, pensioners, teachers and even bazaar traders have joined the protests. The government will find it hard to sweep them under the usual spectre of a “foreign hand”.