Iran protests enter ninth day as Trump renews intervention threat

Protests sparked by Iran’s struggling economy have entered their ninth day, as U.S. President Donald Trump warned of potential intervention.

Iran Protests Enter Ninth Day Amid Economic Grievances

Demonstrations were reported Sunday in Tehran, as well as the provinces of Fars, Ilam, North Khorasan and Semnan, according to videos published online. Human rights activists say protests have occurred in 26 of the country’s 31 provinces since last week.

At least 19 protesters and one member of the security forces have been killed, human rights activists reported.

Trump warned Iranian authorities would be “hit very hard” if more protesters were killed. “We’re watching it very closely. If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States,” he told reporters on Air Force One.

Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, speaker of Iran’s parliament, stated Monday that the protesters’ “legitimate demands” should be heard and used as the basis for change. However, he added that any foreign agents or opponents of the establishment attempting to exploit the protests would be “confronted effectively.”

These comments echoed those of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has declared that “rioters should be put in their place.”

The Iranian foreign ministry’s spokesman accused Israel of seeking to “undermine our national unity,” after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his government’s “solidarity with the struggle of the Iranian people” on Sunday. Esmail Baqai told a news conference that statements by Netanyahu and “certain radical American officials” were “nothing more than incitement to violence.”

Iran and Israel fought a 12-day war last June, during which Israeli and US jets bombed key Iranian nuclear facilities.

The protests began when shopkeepers in Tehran took to the streets on December 28 to express anger at a sharp fall in the value of the Iranian currency against the US dollar. The rial has sunk to a record low and inflation has risen to 40% as sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program squeeze the economy.

University students soon joined the protests, and they began spreading to other cities. Footage posted on social media Monday appeared to show a protest in Yasuj, south-western Iran, with a crowd chanting “Freedom, freedom, freedom,” according to BBC Persian.

Videos obtained by BBC Persian on Sunday night showed several dozen protesters marching in Sari, north of Tehran, chanting slogans including “Death to the dictator” – a reference to Khamenei – and “Pahlavi is coming back” – a reference to Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the late shah. Gunfire was heard in another clip.

BBC Persian also reported protests in the districts of Ilam, Arak, Hamedan, Amol, Lahijan, Kermanshah, Malekshahi, Semnan and Noorabad on Sunday evening.

Another video purportedly showed security forces storming a hospital in the western city of Ilam, where a human rights activist said wounded protesters were sheltering.

The protests are the most widespread since an uprising in 2022 sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman detained by morality police for allegedly not wearing her veil properly. Hundreds were killed and thousands detained in a violent crackdown by security forces.