Protests in Iran sparked by economic woes now nationwide, activists say

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Protests in Iran sparked by economic woes have now gone nationwide in the Islamic Republic, activists said Thursday, signaling both their staying power and intensity as they challenge the country's theocracy.

Wednesday saw the most-intense day of demonstrations, reaching rural towns and major cities in every province though still localized enough for daily life to continue in Tehran, Iran's capital, and elsewhere. So far, violence around the demonstrations has killed at least 38 people while more than 2,200 others have been detained, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency.

The growth of the protests increases the pressure on Iran's civilian government and its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. So far, authorities haven't shut down the internet or fully flooded the streets with security forces like they did to put down the 2022 Mahsa Amini demonstrations. But any intensification may seem them act.

Meanwhile, the protests themselves have remained broadly leaderless, though a call for protests by Iran's exiled crown prince will test whether or not demonstrators are being swayed by messages from abroad.

“The lack of a viable alternative has undermined past protests in Iran,” wrote Nate Swanson of the Washington-based Atlantic Council, who studies Iran.

“There may be a thousand Iranian dissident activists who, given a chance, could emerge as respected statesmen, as labor leader Lech Wałęsa did in Poland at the end of the Cold War. But so far, the Iranian security apparatus has arrested, persecuted and exiled all of the country’s potential transformational leaders.”

Wednesday's protests broadest yet

On Wednesday, at least 37 protests took place across the country, activists said. They included Shiraz, where online videos purported to show an anti-riot truck using a water cannon to target demonstrators. The state-run IRNA news agency, which has largely been silent about the demonstrations, reported on a mass demonstration in Bojnourd, as well as demonstrations in Kerman and Kermanshah.

Iranian officials have offered no acknowledgment of the scale of the protests. However, there has been reporting regarding security officials being hurt or killed. The judiciary's Mizan news agency report a police colonel suffered fatal stab wounds in a town outside of Tehran, while the semiofficial Fars news agency said gunmen killed two security force members and wounded 30 others in a shooting in the city of Lordegan in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province.

Demonstrations continued Thursday, with merchants closing their shops in Iran’s Kurdistan province.

It remains unclear why Iranian officials have yet to crack down harder on the demonstrators. U.S. President Donald Trump’s warned last week that if Tehran “violently kills peaceful protesters,” America “will come to their rescue.”

Trump's comments drew a new rebuke from Iran's Foreign Ministry.

“Recalling the long history of criminal interventions by successive U.S. administrations in Iran’s internal affairs, the Foreign Ministry considers claims of concern for the great Iranian nation to be hypocritical, aimed at deceiving public opinion and covering up the numerous crimes committed against Iranians,” it said.

But those comments haven't stopped the U.S. State Department on the social platform X from highlighting online footage purporting to show demonstrators putting up stickers naming roads after Trump or throwing away government-subsidized rice.

“When prices are set so high that neither consumers can afford to buy nor farmers can afford to sell, everyone loses,” the State Department said in one message. “It makes no difference if this rice is thrown away.”

Exiled prince calls for protests

The demonstrations so far broadly appear to be leaderless, like other rounds of protests in Iran in recent years. However, Iran's exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late shah, has urged the public in Iran to shout from their windows and roofs on Thursday and Friday nights at 8 p.m. (1630 GMT).

“Wherever you are, whether in the streets or even from your own homes, I call on you to begin chanting exactly at this time,” Pahlavi said in an online video that's also been promoted by Iranian satellite news channels abroad. “Based on your response, I will announce the next calls to action.”

Whether people take part will be a sign of possible support for Pahlavi, whose support of and from Israel has drawn criticism in the past — particularly after the 12-day war Israel waged on Iran in June. Demonstrators have shouted in support of the shah in some demonstrations, but it isn't clear whether that's support for Pahlavi or a desire to return to a time before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Meanwhile, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi remains imprisoned by authorities after her arrest in December.

“Since Dec. 28, 2025, the people of Iran have taken to the streets, just as they did in 2009, 2019,” her son Ali Rahmani said. “Each time, the same demands came up: an end to the Islamic Republic, an end to this patriarchal, dictatorial and religious regime, the end of the clerics, the end of the mullahs' regime.”

Biggest protests since Mahsa Amini's death

Iran has faced rounds of nationwide protests in recent years. As sanctions tightened and Iran struggled after a 12-day war with Israel in June, its rial currency collapsed in December, reaching 1.4 million to $1. Protests began soon after, with demonstrators chanting against Iran’s theocracy.

Prior to Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, the rial was broadly stable, trading at around 70 to $1. At the time of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, $1 traded for 32,000 rials. Shops in markets across the country have shut down as part of the protests.

This round of protests has yet to reach the level of the months of protests surrounding the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody in 2022. Amini was detained over not wearing her hijab, or headscarf, to the liking of authorities. Her death became a rallying cry for women who continue to refuse to wear the hijab.