What you need to know about Iran’s deadly protests as government shuts down the Internet – National
Nationwide protests in Iran sparked by the Islamic Republic’s faltering economy are putting new pressure on its regime, which has responded with deadly crackdowns and internet shutdowns.
Tehran is still reeling from the 12-day war launched by Israel in June when America bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities. Economic pressure, which has been intensifying since September when the United Nations reimposed sanctions on the country over its nuclear program, has sent Iran’s currency tumbling, now trading at more than 1.4 million to US$1.
Meanwhile, Iran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance” – an alliance of countries and militant groups backed by Tehran – has been on the decline since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in 2023.
US President Donald Trump has warned that if Tehran “brutally kills peaceful protesters” the US will “save them” – a threat that has taken on new meaning after the US military captured Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, a long-time ally of Tehran.
“We’re looking very closely at it,” Trump warned. “If they start killing people like they did in the past, I think they will be hit hard by the United States.”
Here’s what you need to know about the protests and challenges facing the Iranian government.
More than 600 protests have taken place in all 31 provinces of Iran, the United States Human Rights Activists News Agency reported on Tuesday. The death toll has reached at least 646, meaning that more than 10,700 people have been arrested. The group relies on a network of activists inside Iran for its reporting and has been accurate in past unrest.
The Iranian government has not provided figures on the number of people injured in the protests. The Associated Press was unable to independently assess the street price, as the Internet is closed in Iran. Iranians can call abroad on their phones on Tuesday after the restrictions were lifted.
Understanding the scale of the protests has been difficult. Iran’s state media has provided little information about the protests. Online videos only offer brief, shaky glimpses of people on the streets or the sound of gunfire.
Journalists in general in Iran also face restrictions on reporting such as requiring permission to travel throughout the country, and the threat of harassment or arrest by the authorities. The internet shutdown has made the situation even more difficult.
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But the protests don’t seem to be stopping, even after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said “riots must be put in their place.”
The collapse of the rial has led to an increasing economic crisis in Iran. Prices go up for meat, rice and other staples of the Iranian dinner table. The country was struggling with an annual inflation rate of 40%.
In December, Iran introduced a new tier of prices for its nationally subsidized fuel, raising the price of one of the world’s cheapest gases and further squeezing the population. Tehran may demand higher prices in the future, as the government will now review prices every three months. Meanwhile, food prices are expected to rise after the Central Bank of Iran in recent days ended the special, dollar-rial-backed exchange rate for all products except medicine and wheat.
The protests began in late December with merchants in Tehran before spreading. Although they initially focused on economic issues, the protesters soon began chanting anti-government statements. Anger has been simmering for years, especially after the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, in police custody in 2022 which sparked protests across the country.
Others were chanting in support of Iran’s exiled prince, Reza Pahlavi, who has called for protests.
Iran’s “Axis of Resistance,” which rose to prominence in the years following the 2003 US-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq, is on the move.
Israel has crushed Hamas in a devastating war in the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah, a Shiite group in Lebanon, saw its top leadership killed by Israel and has been struggling ever since. An attack on the company in December 2024 toppled Iran’s longtime activist and client in Syria, President Bashar Assad, after years of war there. The Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have also been attacked by Israeli and American airstrikes.
China currently remains the largest buyer of Iranian crude oil, but has not provided overt military support. Neither does Russia, which relies on Iranian drones in its war with Ukraine.
Iran has insisted for decades that its nuclear program is peaceful. However, its officials have threatened to pursue a nuclear weapon. Before the US attack in June, Iran was enriching uranium to weapons grade, making it the only country in the world without a nuclear weapons program to do so.
Tehran has also reduced its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog, as tensions have grown over its nuclear program in recent years. The Director General of the IAEA has warned that Iran could build up to 10 nuclear bombs if it decides to use its program.
US intelligence agencies have assessed that Iran has not yet begun a weapons program, but “has undertaken activities that put it in a better position to develop a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.”
Iran recently said it is no longer burning uranium anywhere in the country, trying to signal to the West that it is still open to possible talks on its nuclear program to ease sanctions. But there have been no significant negotiations in the months since the June war.
Iran decades ago was one of the top allies of the United States in the Mideast under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who bought weapons for the American military and allowed CIA experts to run secret listening posts monitoring the neighboring Soviet Union. The CIA launched a coup in 1953 that cemented the shah’s rule.
But in January 1979, the shah fled Iran as many protests grew against his rule. Then came the Islamic Revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which created the theocratic government of Iran.
Later that year, university students stormed the US Embassy in Tehran, demanding the shah’s return and sparked a 444-day hostage crisis that saw ties between Iran and the US severed.
During the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, the US supported Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. During that conflict, the US launched a one-day strike that crippled Iran at sea as part of the so-called “Tanker War,” and later shot down an Iranian commercial airliner that the US military said it thought was a warplane.
Iran and the US have seen each other between hostility and acrimonious negotiations over the years. Relations reached a new high with the 2015 nuclear deal, which saw Iran significantly scale back its program in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. But Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement in 2018, which caused tensions in the Mideast that intensified after the October 7, 2023 attack by Hamas in Israel.
