Iran Protest Deaths Concerning Ailing Economy
Kanako Mita, Sawako Utsumi, and Lee Jay Walker
Modern Tokyo Times
Iran’s ailing economy is once again igniting unrest across cities and rural provinces alike, as ordinary people confront the suffocating weight of soaring prices and collapsing living standards. These protests, driven by desperation rather than ideology, have already exacted a lethal cost. At least seven people are reported to have been killed following clashes with the state apparatus — a familiar and grim pattern in the Islamic Republic.
Protests in Iran, and the bloodshed that follows them, are tragically routine. In 2022, the country was convulsed by nationwide fury after the killing of Mahsa Amini, aged just 22 — one of countless innocents crushed beneath the regime’s moral authoritarianism. Her “crime,” like that of many others, was failing to conform to the compulsory hijab imposed by Iran’s Islamic authorities on women and girls. The demonstrations that followed were among the most potent challenges to the system in decades.
The current protests, rooted primarily in economic hardship, lack the same nationwide ferocity — at least for now. Yet the response of the state remains brutally familiar.
According to AP News, “The deaths may mark the start of a heavier-handed response by Iran’s theocracy over the demonstrations, which have slowed in the capital, Tehran, but expanded elsewhere. The fatalities, two on Wednesday and five on Thursday, occurred in four cities, largely home to Iran’s Lur ethnic group.”
In Azna, in Lorestan Province — some 300 kilometres from Tehran — crowds chanted “Shameless! Shameless!” as gunfire echoed through the streets. Tensions escalated rapidly as protesters confronted a security apparatus that reflexively reaches for violence. Force, intimidation, and fear remain the regime’s default language.
Deaths have also been reported in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province and in Isfahan. Yet the true toll remains obscured by the opaque and despotic nature of Iran’s ruling system, where information is suppressed and accountability is absent.
President Masoud Pezeshkian is branded a “reformist” by the regime’s narrow standards. In reality, he wields little influence over the structural decay consuming the economy. The collapse of the rial — now hovering around 1.4 million rials to one US dollar — lies beyond his remit. Iran’s economic ruin is the product of authoritarian governance, endemic corruption, international adventurism, sanctions, suffocated freedoms, and the systematic prioritisation of power over people.
The Guardian reports: “The protests come after a year of a record number of executions in Iran, with more than 1,500 people put to death in 2025 — the highest number since 1989. Human rights groups say the Iranian authorities have used the death penalty to instil fear among the population and crush dissent.”
This is the architecture of terror upon which the Shia Islamist state sustains itself — extreme concentration of power, enforced conformity, and the ruthless elimination of dissent. Just over three years ago, the regime murdered Mahsa Amini (22), Sarina Esmailzadeh (16), Hadis Najafi (22), Nika Shakarami (16), and countless others — not for violence, but for dress, defiance, and belief in dignity, liberty, and hope.
Today, amid protests driven by hunger and despair, the ruling elite once again responds with bullets and batons. Early 2026 is already witnessing the deaths of new innocents — sacrificed not because they threaten the state, but because the state fears accountability, transparency, and the mere idea of freedom.
Whether these protests will swell into a broader movement remains uncertain. Yet history offers a bleak precedent. If the past repeats itself, the state apparatus will move decisively to crush dissent, detaining thousands on flimsy charges, silencing voices through fear, and reinforcing its rule through bloodshed.
In Iran, the struggle between power and people continues — and it is the people who keep paying the price.
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