THE widening economic protests sweeping across Iran have claimed 10 lives so far, state-affiliated media and rights groups have reported.
The protests over soaring inflation and currency woes are so far smaller than some previous bouts of unrest in Iran, but have spread across the country, with deadly confrontations between demonstrators and security forces focused in western provinces.
The clerical leadership has seen off repeated eruptions of unrest in recent decades, often quelling protests with heavy security measures and mass arrests. But economic problems may leave authorities more vulnerable now.
The new protests are the biggest since nationwide demonstrations triggered by the death of a young woman in custody in 2022 paralysed Iran for weeks, with rights groups reporting hundreds killed.
US President Donald Trump, who has threatened to come to the aid of protesters if Iran cracked down on them, did not specify what sort of action the US could take in support of the unrest.
Washington has long imposed broad financial sanctions on Tehran, in particular since Trump’s first term when, in 2018, he pulled the US out of Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers and declared a ‘maximum pressure’ campaign against Tehran.
Video verified by Reuters showed dozens of people gathered in front of a burning police station overnight, as gunshots sporadically rang out and people shouted ‘shameless, shameless’ at the authorities.
In the southern city of Zahedan, where Iran’s Baluch minority predominates, the human rights news group Hengaw reported that protesters had chanted slogans including ‘Death to the dictator’.
Hengaw has reported at least 80 arrests so far over the unrest, mostly in the west, and including 14 members of Iran’s Kurdish minority.
State television also reported the arrest of an unspecified number of people in another western city, Kermanshah, accused of manufacturing petrol bombs and homemade pistols. Iranian media also said two heavily armed individuals were arrested in central and western Iran before they could carry out attacks.
The deaths acknowledged by official or semi-official Iranian media have been in the small western cities of Lordegan and Kuhdasht. Hengaw also reported that a man was killed in Fars province in central Iran, though state news sites denied this.
Rights groups and social media posts reported protests in a number of cities last night.
Reuters could not verify all the reports of unrest, arrests or deaths.
During the latest unrest, Iran’s elected President Masoud Pezeshkian has struck a conciliatory tone, pledging dialogue with protest leaders over the cost-of-living crisis, even as rights groups said security forces had fired on demonstrators.
The sliding currency has compounded inflation, which has hovered above 36 per cent since March even by official estimates, in an economy battered by Western sanctions.
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