Inside Iran’s growing protests that threaten the Islamic regime
Comparisons with China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square protests have surged online amid a video showing a lone man seated in the middle of a Tehran street, facing down police on motorbikes.
After a brief exchange, he was beaten by police, human rights groups said.
Some have dubbed this Iran’s ‘Tiananmen moment’ after demonstrations that initially erupted over the sharp fall of the Rial, the country’s currency, have now erupted across the Middle Eastern nation.
Unrest first started in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar – traditionally a barometer of economic anger – over the weekend and have since spilled far beyond, and are now threatening the governing Islamic regime.
This is how Iran’s protests have unfolded in the last three days.
What’s happening in Iran right now?
The protests are no longer just about prices and livelihoods, but the repression of human rights and the autocratic system itself.
Since the first one staged by merchants at the Grand Bazaar on Sunday, crowds have taken to the streets of the capital and at several universities, clashing with police.
Demonstrators launched a third day of protests on Tuesday, with videos circulating online show scores of people marching along a street in Tehran and chanting ‘Rest in peace Reza Shah’, a reference to the founder of the royal dynasty ousted in the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Footage aired on Iranian state TV on Monday showed people gathered in central Tehran chanting slogans.
Protests also broke out at the technology university in the central city of Isfahan and institutions in the cities of Yazd and Zanjan, Ilna and state-run IRNA reported.
Other clips show students and young women chanting and marching in the capital and confronting riot police, suggesting a shift in scale.
On social media, some Iranians voiced support for the protests with one, Soroosh Dadkhah, saying high prices and corruption had led people ‘to the point of explosion’ and another, Masoud Ghasemi, warning of protests spreading across the country.
The protests are the largest since a wave of demonstrations rocked the country after Mahsa Amini, 22, died in police custody following her arrest for not wearing the hijab correctly.
At the time, Iranian police responded with force, imposing an internet shutdown and violently cracking down on demonstrations with teargas and gunfire.
How has the Islamic regime responded now?
Police opened fire to protestors using teargas, as well as deploying batons on the crowds, rights groups warned.
The Grand Bazaar is understood to be under heightened security. There are also reports of arrests, heavy police presence, and parts of the area being effectively locked down.
On Tuesday, Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian,said he has instructed the government to listen to the ‘legitimate demands’ of protesters.
A government spokesperson said that a mechanism for dialogue would be set up to have talks with leaders of the protest movement.
‘The livelihood of my people is my daily concern,’ Pezeshkian wrote in a post on X.
He added that the government had ‘actions on the agenda to reform the monetary and banking system and preserve the purchasing power of the people’.
Is the cost of living going up in Iran?
Iran’s rial currency has lost nearly half its value against the dollar in 2025, with inflation reaching 42.5% in December in a country where unrest has repeatedly flared in recent years and which is facing US sanctions and threats of Israeli strikes.
Pezeshkian – who has less authority under Iran’s system of government than supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – met with labour leaders and made proposals to tackle the economic crisis, according to press agency Mehr.
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