DUBAI — Widening demonstrations sparked by Iran’s ailing economy spread Thursday into rural provinces, with at least seven people killed in the first fatalities reported among protesters and security forces since the unrest began, authorities said. The deaths — two on Wednesday and five on Thursday — occurred across four cities largely home to Iran’s Lur ethnic group, according to the Associated Press.
The killings mark the first signs of a potentially heavier government response to protests that have become Iran’s largest since the 2022 demonstrations triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody. Reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian has acknowledged limited ability to arrest the rial’s collapse — the economic force driving demonstrators from the capital into the countryside.
Violence spreads across western provinces
The most intense violence appeared in Azna, a city in Iran’s Lorestan province about 300 kilometers southwest of Tehran. Online videos purported to show objects ablaze in the streets and gunfire echoing as crowds shouted “Shameless! Shameless!” The semiofficial Fars news agency reported three people had been killed there. State-run media did not fully acknowledge the violence in Azna or elsewhere; journalists had faced arrest for their coverage of the 2022 protests.
In Lordegan, a city in Iran’s Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province about 470 kilometers south of Tehran, Fars — citing an anonymous official — reported two people killed during Thursday’s protests. The Washington-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran also reported two deaths in Lordegan, identifying the dead as demonstrators. The center shared an image of what appeared to be an Iranian police officer wearing body armor and wielding a shotgun.
In Fuladshahr, in Iran’s Isfahan province, state media reported the death of a man that activist groups attributed to police opening fire on demonstrators.
A separate demonstration Wednesday night in Kouhdasht, over 400 kilometers southwest of Tehran, led to the death of a 21-year-old volunteer in the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard’s Basij force, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. Another 13 Basij members and police officers were injured. Local prosecutor Kazem Nazari said 20 people had been arrested after the protests, with calm having returned to the city.
A student news network believed to be close to the Basij said the Guard member “was martyred … at the hands of rioters during protests in this city in defense of public order,” citing comments from Saeed Pourali, a deputy governor in Lorestan province.
Economic collapse cited as driver
Pourali attributed the demonstrations to the country’s economic deterioration. “The protests that have occurred are due to economic pressures, inflation and currency fluctuations, and are an expression of livelihood concerns,” he said, according to the AP. “The voices of citizens must be heard carefully and tactfully, but people must not allow their demands to be strained by profit-seeking individuals.”
Iran’s rial has rapidly depreciated, with $1 now costing approximately 1.4 million rials, according to the AP. Pezeshkian has signaled a desire to negotiate with demonstrators but acknowledged there is not much he can do to reverse the currency’s slide.
The protests have yet to reach the same nationwide scale or intensity as the 2022 demonstrations, which erupted after Mahsa Amini, 22, died in police custody following her detention for allegedly not wearing her hijab to the liking of authorities. Those protests drew participants across the country; the current unrest has spread to rural areas but remained concentrated in several provinces.
Iran’s theocracy declared a public holiday Wednesday across much of the country, citing cold weather — a move that appeared designed to draw people out of Tehran ahead of the Iranian Thursday-Friday weekend.
Arrests and geopolitical backdrop
State television separately reported the arrests of seven people, including five it described as monarchists and two it said were linked to European-based groups. Authorities also said security forces had confiscated 100 smuggled pistols.
The unrest comes as Iran continues to contend with the aftermath of a 12-day war with Israel in June, during which the United States also bombed Iranian nuclear sites. Iran has since said it is no longer enriching uranium at any site in the country, signaling openness to potential negotiations over its atomic program to ease international sanctions. Those talks have not materialized, as U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have both warned Tehran against reconstituting its nuclear capabilities.