Tehran, Iran – Protests and strikes have spread across Iran over the past week amid a rapid economic decline and grievances over multiple ongoing crises.

Shopkeepers took to the streets and closed down businesses in downtown Tehran on December 28, sparking demonstrations that have now been recorded in most of Iran’s 31 provinces.

Recommended Stories

list of 4 itemsend of list

The country has a long history of popular protests over a variety of issues, and saw its last shah toppled in 1979 by an Islamic revolution that brought the incumbent theocratic establishment to power.

Here’s a look at previous nationwide and some smaller protests after the revolution and how they were handled to offer a fuller picture of what is transpiring now.

Early post-revolution protests (1979 to late 1990s)

Women’s protests started less than two weeks after the revolution, with thousands marching in Tehran to oppose Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s decree mandating the hijab, or Islamic headscarf covering.

The decree followed a ban on alcohol; the separation of men and women in universities, schools, pools and beaches; and limitations on broadcasting music from radio and television.

The alarmed women were met with threats as well as pro-state mobs who attacked them with sticks and stones. The hijab eventually became mandatory and noncompliance punishable by law several years later, creating a pillar of the Islamic Republic and the root of decades of tensions with the public that culminated in the Mahsa Amini protests of 2022 and 2023.

As differences grew among camps that led the revolution to success, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was formed and deployed to crack down on protests and political dissent called by opposing camps, especially the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) and their supporters.

Advertisement

The MEK eventually turned to assassinations and bombings, and was designated a “terrorist” outfit by the establishment. Many members were executed or exiled, predominantly during the final years of the devastating eight-year war with neighbouring Iraq, which invaded Iran under Saddam Hussein in the 1980s.

After the war and during most of the 1990s, only sporadic unrest was recorded in several cities, including in Mashhad in 1992, Qazvin in 1994, and the Tehran suburb of Eslamshahr in 1995, mostly tied to economic grievances and sudden price jumps.

Student and reformist protests (1999-2003)

In July 1999, Tehran was rocked by massive student-led protests triggered by the closure of a reformist newspaper by hardliners.

The media censorship outraged students who supported President Mohammad Khatami’s alleged liberalisation and reforms agenda and his “dialogue among civilisations” discourse to boost international ties.

Police and paramilitary Basij forces affiliated with the IRGC raided the dorms of the students at night and brutally attacked them in their sleep, beating them and even reportedly setting rooms on fire.

People and students took to the streets in Tehran, and the demonstrations then spread to university campuses in Tabriz, Mashhad, Isfahan and other cities.

By the time the protests were quelled by security forces days later, multiple students were dead, dozens injured, and hundreds jailed.

The judiciary decided none of the security forces involved in the violence would be imprisoned. One police officer was ordered to pay a fine for stealing an electric shaver. Khatami – now sidelined for years like all other presidents after his tenure – only lamented “riots” allegedly aimed at derailing his reforms, and expressed his strong support for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The issue also received international attention, with a picture of a student holding up the bloodied shirt of his friend going viral.

Leaderless student protests were renewed near the 2003 anniversary of the initial demonstrations, but were clamped down on in confrontations and arrests for about a week.

In late June 2007, public anger erupted overnight in Tehran and cities across the country after populist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad imposed an abrupt petroleum rationing scheme to curb imports, which led to people forming long queues at fuel stations.

A number of fuel stations and some bank branches were set alight by angry protesters before calm was largely restored a day later.

Green Movement (2009-2010)

After the June 12 presidential election, when the hugely divisive Ahmadinejad was re-elected to form a second government, Iran saw by far its largest protests, which also grabbed international attention.

Advertisement

Millions of Iranians took to the streets in Tehran and major cities across the country after the authorities insisted Ahmadinejad won in a landslide. Protesters, some donning green attire used as the campaign colour of reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi and his allies, formed peaceful protests of unprecedented scale, asking, “Where is my vote?”

But after weeks of demonstrations, Basij militias and police increasingly attacked rallies with batons, tear gas and eventually live ammunition. Dozens were confirmed killed by human rights monitors, but the authorities refused to announce official death tolls.

The death of one young woman, Neda Agha-Soltan, shook the nation and turned her into an international symbol. The 26-year-old philosophy student was filmed bleeding on the pavement in Tehran after being shot in the chest while protesting, with blood pouring out of her mouth and nose.

State television and authorities rejected eyewitness accounts that Agha-Soltan was shot by security forces, claimed the video was fabricated with “propaganda” at work to turn opinions, and tried to make her parents corroborate their version of events.

The protests eventually stopped in early 2010 after several thousand people were arrested, partial media blackouts imposed, and internet and mobile networks throttled. The movement’s figureheads were later put under house arrest, with Mousavi still confined to this day. The authorities have said they consider the Green Movement not as legitimate dissent, but as a “sedition”.

Iran’s internet crackdown significantly intensified amid the Green Movement, with many top international services such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube blocked in the aftermath along with thousands of websites.

In early 2011, several Iranian cities saw solidarity protests with Arab Spring demonstrators in Egypt, Tunisia and other countries. There was also a rare demonstration and strike in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar in October 2012 after the Iranian rial lost more than 60 percent of its value against the United States dollar within weeks.

Overt street protests were limited between 2013 and 2015, when moderate President Hassan Rouhani came to power with the promise of decreasing tensions with the West and improving people’s livelihoods hurt by United Nations sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear programme.

In the final days of 2017, a few hundred demonstrators started chanting slogans against the government of Rouhani over economic hardship in the northeastern ultraconservative city of Mashhad.

This took place against the backdrop of a political fight between hardliners and reformists as Iran’s currency plummeted over US President Donald Trump’s threats to withdraw from the landmark nuclear deal reached with world powers in 2015 and impose sanctions.

Within days, the protests spread to more than 100 cities across the country, with people chanting against the establishment amid anger over the cost of living, unemployment, and regional policies such as funding and arming the so-called “axis of resistance”.

Advertisement

An officially undetermined number of people were killed after weeks of protests, mostly protesters shot in provincial towns, with many others detained. The government also blocked Telegram, the messaging app that continues to remain vastly popular in Iran despite years of online crackdown.

Iran saw a surge of sectoral protests in the aftermath of that upheaval, with truck drivers launching nationwide strikes over low wages and fuel costs throughout 2018. Teachers and educators organised sit-ins and peaceful rallies in most provinces to demand unpaid salaries and better funding for schools.

In summer 2018, water shortages provoked public demonstrations as well, with people taking to the streets in the western Khuzestan province, only to be met by security forces firing pellets and live rounds, killing and wounding several people.

There were also environmental demonstrations, with farmers in central Isfahan protesting the diversion of water from the iconic Zayandeh Rud River, at times blocking roads with tractors.

The tense situation again exploded into sudden nationwide protests in November 2019, when the government increased petroleum prices up to 200 percent overnight.

People began chanting in Tehran and closing down highways during the winter cold. Iranians from all walks of life, especially the working class and strained youth, joined the ranks in the capital and other places such as Mahshahr in Khuzestan.

Within days, IRGC units and riot police fired live ammunition, water cannon, and tear gas to put an end to demonstrations in city after city.

Iranians were dealt a major shock when the state, for the first time, imposed a near-total internet blackout that left tens of millions of people without a connection for close to a week as the unrest continued.

Amnesty International said at least 304 protesters were killed, but Reuters news agency cited an unnamed Interior Ministry official as saying the death toll was closer to 1,500. After months of the government refusing to release any official casualty figures, a parliamentary report acknowledged only about 230 deaths as authorities blamed foreign influence.

There were smaller aftershocks and new triggers over the next two years, with demonstrations recorded over the IRGC’s downing of Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 with two missiles and officials’ denial of the incident for days, along with more water protests in Khuzestan and farmers’ strikes in Isfahan.

Mahsa Amini uprising (2022-2023)

Millions across Iran once more expressed their anger and desire for change across the country after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in police custody after being arrested for alleged noncompliance with mandatory hijab rules.

She was taken by police while walking out of a metro station on vacation with her family in Tehran, and died after collapsing at a “re-education centre” tasked with making women understand how they must dress to avoid being punished by the state. Authorities insisted she had a stroke and suffered from pre-existing health conditions, but her family said she may have been beaten.

Outraged Iranians protested for months in streets and universities, predominantly around the issue of women’s rights but also about broader topics such as extremely limited personal, social, internet and press freedoms, as well as deteriorating economic conditions.

“Woman, life, freedom” became a main slogan, and many people took off their headscarves and switched to their attire of choice in the aftermath, openly defying the “morality police” and hardliners calling for punishments and passing a draconian hijab law.

Huge demonstrations, sometimes gathering as many as tens of thousands, formed in countries around the world in support of the protests as well. Many focused on recognising younger Iranians joining the ranks of the protesters and losing their lives.

Advertisement

Authorities once more traced “enemy” hands to the unrest, especially those of the US, its Western allies, Israel, and even Saudi Arabia, and said “rioters” would face the harshest punishments.

Hundreds of protesters were killed, more than 20,000 people arrested, and multiple people executed in connection to the unrest, with at least one publicly hung from a crane in Mashhad to deter others.

Most of the protests over the years have been leaderless, meaning no single or determined group of organisers has emerged, even as foreign-based individuals and entities continue to claim partial leadership and oppose the establishment without enjoying broad public support inside Iran.

Many of the fundamental issues presented by protesters have not been resolved or have gotten worse, laying the grounds for the ongoing protests in 2026 in the aftermath of the 12-day war with Israel and the US.