Deadly clashes flared across Iran as cost-of-living protests entered a second week, with rights groups and local media reporting fresh confrontations, multiple deaths and hundreds of arrests amid a heavy security deployment in major cities.
At least 12 people, including members of the security forces, have been killed since the unrest began with a shopkeepers’ strike in Tehran on Dec. 28, according to an official toll compiled from state and semi-official reports. Demonstrations have been reported in 23 of Iran’s 31 provinces and in at least 40 cities, most of them small and medium-sized, an AFP tally said.
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Overnight, crowds in Tehran and the southern city of Shiraz, as well as in several western localities where the movement has been strongest, chanted slogans denouncing the country’s clerical leadership, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). The unrest is the most significant since the 2022–2023 protests that erupted after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini.
In one of the deadliest incidents to date, security forces opened fire on protesters in Malekshahi county in western Ilam province on Saturday, killing four people from Iran’s Kurdish minority and wounding dozens more, the Norway-based Hengaw rights group said. The Iran Human Rights organization, also based in Norway, reported the same death toll and at least 30 wounded, saying “security forces attacked the protests” in Malekshahi.
Funerals for the dead were held Sunday, with mourners chanting against the government and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the groups said. Both organizations posted footage showing what appeared to be bloodied bodies on the ground; the videos were verified by AFP.
Hengaw alleged that authorities raided the main hospital in the provincial capital, Ilam, to seize bodies of those killed. Iranian media, meanwhile, said a member of the security forces died in a clash with “rioters” who tried to storm a police office, adding that “two assailants” were killed.
In Tehran, sporadic protests erupted across eastern, western and southern districts on Saturday night, according to the Fars news agency. AFP journalists observed riot police and plainclothes security forces positioned at major intersections on Sunday as the capital’s streets appeared quieter than usual, with most shops open but foot traffic reduced. Images verified by AFP showed police using tear gas to disperse a small crowd that gathered in central Tehran earlier in the day.
HRANA said at least 582 people have been detained over the past week. Hengaw reported that almost all those killed so far were members of ethnic minorities, chiefly Kurds and Lors.
The protests began over soaring living costs and have widened to include political grievances against the Islamic Republic’s leadership. Khamenei, 86, who has led Iran since 1989, faces growing pressure as the government of President Masoud Pezeshkian seeks to blunt public anger. Government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani said on state television that citizens would receive a monthly allowance equivalent to $7 for the next four months, a measure economists and activists say is unlikely to stem discontent.
The demonstrations have reverberated abroad. Several hundred people rallied in Paris on Sunday in two separate gatherings in support of the protesters, a day after similar marches in London, according to AFP correspondents. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country stood “in solidarity with the struggle of the Iranian people,” adding it appeared Iranians were “taking their destiny into their own hands.”
While authorities have repeatedly warned against unrest and labeled participants “rioters,” rights monitors say the death toll could rise if security forces continue to use live fire. With arrests mounting and internet slowdowns reported in parts of the country, the coming days will test whether the movement’s momentum can withstand a tightening crackdown—and whether the government’s limited economic relief can blunt the fury on the streets.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
