2017–2018 Iranian protests

Based on Wikipedia: 2017–2018 Iranian protests

When Egg Prices Toppled a Revolution

It started with eggs.

In late December 2017, the price of eggs in Iran suddenly spiked. For millions of Iranians already struggling to make ends meet, this was the breaking point. Within days, what began as angry complaints about grocery bills in one city would cascade into the most serious challenge to Iran's theocratic government since the massive protests that followed the disputed 2009 presidential election.

The protests that erupted offer a fascinating case study in how authoritarian regimes lose control of narratives they helped create, how economic grievances transform into political fury, and how a population's patience can snap without warning. They also illuminate the peculiar structure of Iran's government—a system where an elected president has far less power than most outsiders assume, and where a single unelected leader has dominated national life for three decades.

The Spark in Mashhad

Mashhad sits in northeastern Iran, about fifty miles from the Afghan border. With roughly three million residents, it's Iran's second-largest city and one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam, home to the shrine of Imam Reza. It's also considered politically conservative—a stronghold of support for the religious establishment that has governed Iran since the 1979 revolution.

This made it a strange place for protests to begin. And in fact, the initial demonstrations may have been engineered by hardliners in Iran's complex political ecosystem, designed to embarrass President Hassan Rouhani rather than threaten the entire system.

If so, the plan backfired spectacularly.

On December 28, 2017, crowds gathered in Mashhad to protest rising prices and economic stagnation. Within forty-eight hours, demonstrations had spread to dozens of cities. Within a week, protests had erupted in more than seventy towns across every province in Iran. By some counts, more than one hundred forty cities eventually saw unrest.

The chants evolved as the protests spread. What started as complaints about the cost of living—eggs, fuel, basic necessities—transformed into direct challenges to the foundations of the Islamic Republic itself.

Understanding Iran's Double-Headed Government

To understand why protesters directed their fury at both President Rouhani and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, you need to grasp the unusual architecture of Iran's government.

Most countries have either a president or a prime minister as their top leader. Iran has both a president and a Supreme Leader, but these are not co-equal positions. The Supreme Leader holds ultimate authority over all matters of state. The president, despite being directly elected by the people, operates with significant constraints on his power.

The Supreme Leader controls the armed forces, the judiciary, state television and radio, and the vast religious foundations that own significant portions of the Iranian economy. He appoints the head of the Revolutionary Guards, the powerful paramilitary force that operates parallel to the regular army. He has the final say on foreign policy. He cannot be removed by any vote or impeachment process.

Ali Khamenei has held this position since 1989, making him at that time the second-longest-serving head of state in the Middle East, trailing only Sultan Qaboos of Oman. He was also the second-longest-serving Iranian leader of the past century, exceeded only by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the monarch whose overthrow in 1979 created the Islamic Republic in the first place.

President Rouhani, by contrast, could make promises during his 2017 reelection campaign—better economic conditions, more openness to the world—but lacked the authority to deliver on many of them. The economic benefits from any reforms flowed disproportionately to institutions controlled by or connected to the Supreme Leader.

The Sanctions, the Deal, and the Disappointment

The economic frustrations that boiled over in December 2017 had been simmering for years.

In 2006, as international concerns about Iran's nuclear program intensified, a comprehensive sanctions regime descended on the country. These weren't gentle diplomatic slaps on the wrist. The sanctions cut Iran off from the global financial system, crippled its oil exports, and created shortages of everything from medicine to industrial equipment.

Then, in 2015, came what seemed like salvation. Iran negotiated a landmark agreement with the world's major powers—the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China—known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. In exchange for verifiable limits on its nuclear program, Iran would receive relief from the most punishing economic sanctions.

Many Iranians expected prosperity to follow. It didn't—at least not for ordinary people.

A Reuters investigation estimated that Setad, an economic conglomerate controlled by Supreme Leader Khamenei, was worth approximately ninety-five billion dollars as of 2013. After sanctions relief began, state-connected enterprises and religious foundations absorbed much of the benefit. According to the Iranian Chamber of Commerce, by 2017 one-third of Iranians lived below the poverty line, and the gap between rich and poor had widened.

The budget that Rouhani's government unveiled in mid-December 2017 crystallized these frustrations. It proposed cutting fuel subsidies and cash payments that many poor Iranians depended upon. At the same time, it preserved generous funding for the Revolutionary Guards and actually increased support for religious foundations—institutions that faced no requirement to disclose how they spent their money and that functioned, in the words of one analyst, as "machines for patronage and propaganda."

A hashtag began trending across Iranian social media: #pashimanam. In Farsi, it means "we regret"—specifically, we regret voting for Rouhani.

The Chants That Shook a Regime

What made these protests historically significant wasn't their size—the 2009 protests had been larger—but their character.

In 2009, the so-called Green Movement had emerged after a disputed presidential election. Protesters believed the vote had been rigged against reformist candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi. Those demonstrations had clear leaders, specific demands about election integrity, and drew participants largely from the urban middle class. Crucially, protesters in 2009 generally framed their grievances within the system—they wanted reform, not revolution.

The 2017-2018 protests, which Iranians came to call the Dey protests after the Persian month in which they began, were fundamentally different.

They had no leaders. No coordination. No single set of demands. They emerged from small cities and rural areas as much as from Tehran. And their chants directly attacked the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic itself.

"Death to the dictator!" protesters shouted, referring unmistakably to Khamenei—a slogan that in Iran carries the risk of severe punishment.

"Khamenei, shame on you, leave the country alone!"

"We don't want an Islamic Republic!"

"People are paupers while the mullahs live like gods."

Perhaps most startling were the chants praising the Pahlavi dynasty—the royal family whose overthrow had been the entire point of the 1979 revolution. Protesters called out "Reza Shah, bless your soul," invoking the founder of the dynasty. They shouted support for Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the deposed shah who died in exile in 1980, and for his son Reza Pahlavi, who lives in the United States and styles himself Crown Prince of Iran.

In Tehran, demonstrators tore down and burned posters of the Supreme Leader—an act that would have been unthinkable just days earlier.

The Government Responds

The Iranian state moved quickly to contain the spreading unrest.

Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli issued a blunt warning on state television: those who "disrupt the order and break the law must be responsible for their behavior and pay the price." He added that "fear and terror will definitely be confronted"—a statement that works in translation either as a threat against violent protesters or as a promise to respond to their tactics in kind.

Internet access was cut in parts of the country. The Telegram messaging app, which Iranians had used to organize and share information, faced blocking. The government's aim was clear: prevent protesters from coordinating and stop video evidence of the protests from circulating.

By December 30, three people had been killed in shooting incidents during protests in central Iran. The Revolutionary Guards were implicated. As unrest continued, the death toll climbed. By early January, at least twenty-one protesters and two members of the security forces had died. According to Mahmoud Sadeghi, a reformist lawmaker from Tehran, some 3,700 demonstrators were arrested, though official figures were much lower.

The Revolutionary Guards dispatched forces to the provinces of Hamadan, Isfahan, and Lorestan. Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari, the head of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, sought to minimize the scale of the protests, claiming only about fifteen hundred protesters had gathered at any individual location and roughly fifteen thousand total nationwide—figures that conflicted with the widespread video evidence.

State media reported dramatic confrontations: protesters allegedly attempting to storm police stations and military bases to steal weapons, being repulsed by security forces. In the town of Qahdarijan, state television claimed six people died when rioters tried to overrun a police facility. The reports could not be independently verified.

The Counter-Revolution Takes the Streets

Faced with the most serious internal challenge in nearly a decade, the Iranian government deployed a familiar tool: the pro-regime rally.

On December 30—which happened to coincide with the anniversary of a large pro-government demonstration from 2009—some four thousand supporters of the system gathered in Tehran. State television reported that pro-government rallies took place in twelve hundred towns and cities across the country.

Over the following days, these counter-demonstrations continued. Participants carried signs denouncing alleged American and Israeli interference. They chanted support for the Supreme Leader and condemned the protesters as agents of foreign enemies.

International observers and journalists described these rallies differently than state media did. Reuters characterized them as "staged." The Washington Post noted they "appeared like state-organized gatherings." The Fars News Agency, which is affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, offered a rather different framing, describing the counter-protests as "the revolutionary outburst of Iranian people against lawbreakers."

The truth likely lies somewhere complicated. The Iranian state does have genuine supporters, and many Iranians feared the instability that could follow if the government fell. At the same time, participation in pro-government demonstrations is often encouraged—or required—by employers, schools, and institutions with ties to the state.

The Arrests and the Deaths in Custody

As the protests wound down in early January, attention shifted to the fate of those who had been detained.

The demographics of the arrested were striking: Iranian authorities acknowledged that ninety percent of those detained were younger than twenty-five. This was a protest of the young, of a generation that had grown up entirely under the Islamic Republic and found its promises hollow.

Then disturbing reports began emerging from Iran's notorious Evin prison, which houses political prisoners in a facility north of Tehran.

Sina Ghanbari, a twenty-three-year-old man arrested during the protests, was reported dead at Evin. The official explanation, delivered by Iranian lawmaker Tayebeh Siavoshi, was suicide. Human rights organizations and journalists outside Iran expressed skepticism.

On January 5, four special rapporteurs from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a public statement urging Iran to "acknowledge and respect rights of protesters and end its blocking of the Internet." The Iranian government was unmoved by such appeals.

The Blame Game

As the immediate crisis subsided, the Revolutionary Guards declared victory. They announced that Iran's people and security forces—including the Basij militia, the police, and the Intelligence Ministry—had "defeated the unrest."

The list of alleged foreign provocateurs was extensive: the United States, Britain, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the People's Mujahedin of Iran (an exiled opposition group), and monarchists. This was a familiar playbook. Iranian officials had made similar accusations during the 2009 protests, and indeed after virtually every episode of domestic unrest since 1979.

One unexpected name surfaced in connection with the protests: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had served as president from 2005 to 2013. According to a report in the Arabic-language newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, Ahmadinejad may have been placed under house arrest with Khamenei's approval after criticizing the current government during the unrest. The report could not be independently confirmed, but it illustrated the complex factional struggles within Iran's political elite.

The Global Echo

Iranians living outside the country watched the protests with a mixture of hope, anguish, and frustration at their own inability to help.

Solidarity demonstrations took place in cities across Europe—Stockholm, Athens, Bern, Cologne—as Iranian diaspora communities sought to show support. In Los Angeles, which is home to the largest Iranian expatriate community in the United States (the area is sometimes nicknamed "Tehrangeles"), thousands marched carrying pictures of Reza Pahlavi II. An estimated two thousand people rallied in the Westwood neighborhood, waving pre-revolutionary Iranian flags and calling for an end to the Islamic Republic.

These diaspora protests reflected the profound division within the Iranian opposition abroad. Some supported the restoration of the monarchy. Others backed secular republican movements. Still others hoped for reform within the existing system. The leaderless, chaotic nature of the protests inside Iran meant there was no clear movement for expatriates to rally behind—just raw anger seeking any available outlet.

A Precursor to Greater Upheaval

The 2017-2018 protests eventually subsided without achieving regime change or even significant reforms. The government made no concessions. The Supreme Leader remained in power. The economic conditions that had sparked the unrest did not improve.

But the protests had revealed something important: the compact between the Islamic Republic and its people had frayed in ways that could not be easily repaired.

In the years that followed, Iran would experience additional waves of protest—over fuel prices in 2019, over the government's handling of a downed Ukrainian airliner in 2020, and most dramatically in 2022 following the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of Iran's "morality police." Each successive outbreak seemed larger, more widespread, and more directly aimed at the foundations of theocratic rule.

The Dey protests of 2017-2018 were not the beginning of Iran's internal crisis—that crisis had been building for decades. But they marked a turning point, the moment when the chant "Death to the dictator" stopped being whispered among trusted friends and started being shouted in the streets.

The Khuzestan Addendum

Three months after the main wave of protests subsided, a new eruption occurred in Iran's southwestern Khuzestan province, home to a significant ethnic Arab minority.

The trigger was peculiar: a popular Iranian cartoon show had used figurines to depict the various ethnic groups of Iran, but had omitted the Arabs of Khuzestan entirely. For a community that had long complained of discrimination and marginalization, this cultural erasure was intolerable.

The protests that followed, dubbed "the Uprising of Dignity," resulted in approximately two hundred arrests. They served as a reminder that Iran's challenges extend beyond economics and politics to questions of ethnic identity, minority rights, and who gets to be seen as fully Iranian.

In a country where Persians constitute a majority but Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Baloch, and other groups make up significant minorities, these questions have no easy answers. They add yet another layer of complexity to any future reckoning between Iran's government and its people.