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Iran's rulers are once again discovering a truth they have spent decades trying to suppress: that a population pushed far enough will eventually push back.
For a fifth consecutive day on Thursday, protests spread across Tehran and multiple provincial cities, with clashes reported overnight and mounting evidence of fatalities. State-linked media, human rights organizations, and opposition groups all acknowledged deaths, even as the authorities continued their familiar efforts at obfuscation and minimization.
Reuters reported that several people have been killed since unrest escalated earlier this week, drawing on Iranian media and human rights sources. Officials have confirmed at least one death, while additional fatalities were reported in multiple provinces, an admission that itself suggests the true number may be higher.
The opposition group National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) told Fox News Digital that demonstrations and street clashes continued Thursday morning in Tehran and in cities including Marvdasht, Kermanshah, Delfan, and Arak. The group claimed that two protesters were killed by direct gunfire in Lordegan, a report that could not be independently verified.
The protests began on Sunday not with ideological slogans but with economic despair. Shopkeepers and merchants, long regarded as a conservative backbone of Iranian society, took to the streets over soaring inflation, unemployment, and the collapsing value of the national currency. The unrest quickly outgrew the bazaars, spreading to students and broader public demonstrations across the country. Economic grievance, as so often in Iran, has proved to be the gateway to political revolt.
In Lordegan, in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province, clashes intensified overnight. Fars News Agency, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, reported that crowds threw stones at government buildings, including the governor’s office, the judiciary, the Martyrs Foundation, the Friday prayer complex, and several banks.
Police responded with tear gas, and multiple buildings were heavily damaged. Fars acknowledged that two people were killed, without clarifying whether they were protesters or members of the security forces, a studied ambiguity that has become standard practice.
The Kurdish rights group Hengaw said protesters in Lordegan were killed by security forces. In Kuhdasht, authorities claimed that a member of the Basij volunteer paramilitary force was killed and 13 others wounded, blaming demonstrators. Hengaw disputed this account, telling Reuters that the individual was in fact a protester killed by security forces. Reuters said it could not independently confirm either version.
Elsewhere, Iran International reported that a 37-year-old man was shot dead in Fooladshahr, in Isfahan province, during overnight protests. The outlet said it verified the man’s identity and reviewed video footage, while provincial police confirmed the death of a 37-year-old citizen but offered no further details.
Six women detained during protests in Tehran have since been transferred to the women’s ward of Evin prison, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), a reminder that repression in Iran is rarely confined to the streets alone.
President Donald Trump and other U.S. administration officials voiced support for the demonstrators this week. Speaking Monday, Trump pointed to Iran’s economic collapse and long-standing public anger, though he stopped short of explicitly calling for regime change.
Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, was less restrained. In a statement on the continuing protests, she said:
"The four-day uprising by merchants, students, and other sectors of society signals the Iranian people’s determination to be free from religious tyranny. This wretched regime is doomed to be overthrown by the risen populace and rebellious youth. The final word is spoken in the streets by the people and the rebellious youth, those with nothing left to lose. This regime must go."
The last nationwide protests of comparable scale followed the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after her detention by Iran’s morality police in October 2022. Those demonstrations centered on women’s rights and state repression. The present unrest, by contrast, is rooted primarily in economic collapse—but in several cities protesters are already directing their fury squarely at the political leadership itself.
Iran’s economy remains crushed by years of international sanctions, rampant inflation, and currency depreciation. On Wednesday, authorities declared a nationwide shutdown across much of the country, officially blaming extreme cold weather, while offering talks with merchants and trade unions over what they described as “legitimate demands.” The gesture was transparently tactical.
Another dissident voice, exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, appealed on X for international support, urging the world “to stand with the people of Iran.” He added:
"The current regime has reached the end of the road. It stands at its most fragile: weak, deeply divided, and unable to suppress the courage of a rising nation. The growing protests show this year will be the definitive moment for change."
Iran has endured repeated waves of unrest over the past decade. Each time, the regime has survived by force, fear, and fatigue. Yet each eruption leaves the system weaker, more exposed, and more reliant on violence to maintain the illusion of control. What is unfolding now is not an aberration. It is the logical consequence of a state that has long governed against its own people—and is finally being answered in the streets.
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UPDATE: Not only have Iranians taken full control over many towns, they have taken control of many police stations and taken over equipment. Islamic forces have begun shooting protesters, so the number of casualties is obviously going to grow. The revolutionaries are now using Molotov cocktails and have hit an IRGC base with them. IRGC members have been captured across the country--it isn't know what their fate is or will be. Statues of the regime are being torn down.
It's highly likely that tomorrow, Friday, will be very vicious. Let's pray for Iran and the revolution. Arab proxies have been brought in by Iraq to deal with the protesters.
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