The Iranian government faces growing widespread unrest as protests have continued for a second week, erupting in 78 cities and at 222 locations.
At least 20 protesters, including three teenagers and one security officer, have been killed and 1,000 protesters arrested, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists in Iran.
A government promise of a payment equivalent to $7 (€6) to compensate for inflation and price hikes has been dismissed by the protesters.
As deaths have mounted, US president Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that Washington would “come to the rescue [if the government] kills peaceful demonstrators”.
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This prompted senior Iranian official Ali Shamkhani to warn the US it would regret any intervention while parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf declared US interests and soldiers in the region would become “legitimate targets”.
Trump’s threat was issued following the US abduction from Caracas of repressive Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores on Saturday.
The Times of London has reported Iran’s ailing supreme leader Ali Khamenei and 20 members of his entourage have planned to flee to Moscow if the protests are not suppressed and, presumably, to avoid capture by the US.
Iran’s latest protests have been triggered by the collapse of the national currency, 40 per cent plus inflation and the soaring cost of living. Launched by shopkeepers and bazaar merchants (bazaaris) who shuttered their shops in Tehran, the demonstrations spread to the universities, energising tens of thousands of students across the country.
Complaining of inflation, unemployment, and economic meltdown, labour unions, teachers’ organisations and civil society groups have issued statements backing the protests.
In some areas, unrest has escalated into demands for the overthrow of the 47-year-old Islamic republic and the restoration of the Pahlavi dynasty which ruled Iran from 1925-79. The government is especially concerned over the participation in the current protests of the bazaaris who formed the vanguard of protests which toppled the Pahlavis.
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These are the largest demonstrations since the 2022-23 protests over the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini who was arrested for failing to wear her headscarf (hijab) as proscribed by law and is seen as submission to the Islamic authorities. As opposition to the regime has grown, defiant women have appeared in public bareheaded, risking arrest.
The US has warned that Iran’s Lebanese ally Hizbullah could be next to suffer US action if dialogue with the Lebanese government fails to achieve disarmament of the movement.
While Iran has told Hizbullah it is free to make its own decisions, the movement has refused to lay down its weapons until there is a peace deal between Lebanon and Israel which continues to mount strikes in the country and occupy strategic hills in south Lebanon.
This situation was on the agenda when Trump met Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu last week.
