Iran is facing its largest demonstrations in years as people hit the streets of Tehran and other cities to protest the country’s dismal economic situation.
The protests erupted Sunday and gathered pace Monday after the Islamic Republic’s currency, the rial, hit a record low against the dollar. Many in Iran are already struggling with the cost of living, and rising prices have fueled concerns about potential hyperinflation.
In Tehran, shopkeepers protested near the city’s central bazaar, reminiscent of the Iranian revolution in 1979 when merchants played a key role by shuttering their shops and protesting against the reigning monarch at the time.
While the underlying reasons for the protests are economic, video geolocated by NBC News that circulated online Sunday showed crowds chanting against the country’s ruling clerics. NBC News was not able to establish when the footage was dated to.
A photo from the state-run Fars news agency showed tear gas being fired, though Iran’s president urged authorities to listen to the “legitimate demands” of the protesters. The embattled head of the central bank, Mohammad Reza Farzin, resigned Monday, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported.
The Iranian rial crashed to 1.42 million to the dollar on Sunday and was being traded for 1.38 million to the dollar on Monday. The dramatic drop in the value of the currency has led to families struggling to make ends meet as the value of their savings has plunged, analysts say.
According to the state statistics center, the inflation rate in December rose to 42.2% from the same period last year and is 1.8% higher than in November. Food prices rose 72% and health and medical items were up 50% from December last year, according to the statistics center. Many critics see the rate as a sign of approaching hyperinflation.
“People feel that they are left alone, that the leadership doesn’t care about them,” Omid Memarian, a senior Iran analyst at Dawn, a Washington-based nonprofit promoting human rights in the Middle East, told NBC News in a telephone interview.
“The president doesn’t know what to do and the sanctions are biting and the pressure is just mounting by the day,” said Memarian, a prominent critic of the Iranian government who previously worked at the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran.
The protests began among shopkeepers and traders in Tehran, with state media reporting that many stores around the Grand Bazaar were closed Monday as hundreds gathered.
The currency drop and fluctuating prices saw traders selling imported goods particularly affected.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian acknowledged the country’s deep economic woes in a message posted to X on Monday. He said he had instructed the minister of interior to meet with representatives from the protesters in order to hear their concerns and try to solve their problems.
“People’s concerns and protests about livelihood problems must be addressed responsibly,” Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said Tuesday, according to state television.
“Immediate decisions are necessary to maintain people’s purchasing power,” he said, “and assure people that wrong economic practices are changing and improving.”
Qalibaf also accused Iran’s enemies of seeking to exploit the protests.
Authorities announced a shutdown would take place Wednesday in Tehran and a number of other provinces across the country, citing cold weather and the need to maintain energy supplies.
The demonstrations appeared to be the largest in the Islamic Republic since the Woman, Life, Freedom protests in 2022 and 2023, which posed a serious challenge to the Iranian government and only dwindled after a harsh crackdown from security forces that led to the death of some 500 people and the arrest of thousands.
“While these protests have a different trigger than the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom uprising — sparked by the murder of Mahsa Jina Amini at the hands of the so-called morality police—the core grievances remain the same: systemic mismanagement, corruption, and repression,” Holly Dagres, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said in a text message response to questions. “For Iranians, as long as the Islamic Republic remains in power, their problems cannot be solved.”
Iran’s economy has been battered by years of sanctions and a 12-day war with Israel last June — when the U.S. military also attacked the country’s nuclear facilities — left the country reeling.
“After the war, there was a sense that there would be a huge opening up, but you’re seeing actually the leadership of Iran has become even more hard line and people don’t see any path toward getting out of the ditch that they are in now,” said Memarian.
