What Do Iran Protests Today Look Like?
Iran protests today look very different from the nationwide uprising that began nine months ago. Resistance has not simply disappeared; it is less concentrated in enormous street demonstrations and increasingly visible through smaller protests, strikes, civil disobedience and other forms of noncompliance.
That distinction matters. A movement does not necessarily end when crowds become smaller, particularly when public protest carries an extraordinary personal cost. Nor does every strike, labour dispute or act of social defiance belong to one coordinated opposition movement.
What Iran shows instead is a more fragmented picture. Different groups are challenging different pressures, in different ways and for different reasons. Women openly defying compulsory hijab rules are one of the clearest examples: behaviour once driven from public space by enforcement has itself become a persistent form of civil disobedience.
The question now is not simply whether Iranians are still protesting. It is whether resistance is disappearing—or adapting.
Sources:
Jon Gambrell, Associated Press: Iran Hesitates to Clamp Down on Defiance of Headscarf Rules as War and Economic Pressures Mount
Are Iranians Still Protesting Today?
Yes. Iranians are still protesting in 2026, although current demonstrations are generally smaller, more localised and focused on specific economic or social demands rather than forming one continuous nationwide protest movement.
Recent demonstrations show that public protest remains active across different parts of the country. Social Security retirees have held recurring gatherings in cities including Tehran, Ahvaz, Isfahan, Shush and Kermanshah, protesting pensions that have failed to keep pace with living costs and demanding better access to healthcare.
Other groups have taken to the streets for different reasons. In Khuzestan, unemployed young people from Hor and surrounding villages demonstrated for several consecutive days outside the Haft-Tappeh sugarcane complex, demanding that promised local employment opportunities be made available to them.
Sources:
Sara Shirazi, IranWire: Iranian Retirees Take to Streets as Pensions Fail to Keep Pace With Inflation
Maryam Dehkordi, IranWire: “We Simply Want Our Rights”: Unemployed Youths Protest Outside Haft-Tappeh
Are All of These Protests Against the Iranian Government?
No. Treating every labour or pension protest as an anti-government uprising would obscure what protesters themselves are demanding.
Some demonstrations remain centred on pensions, wages, employment or public services. Others have moved beyond immediate economic grievances. Retiree demonstrations have also included demands for the release of imprisoned workers, teachers and protesters, showing how economic and political demands can sometimes occupy the same protest space.
There are also collective actions with an explicitly political character. On September 16, businesses and shopkeepers joined a general strike across at least 11 Kurdish cities to mark the fourth anniversary of Jina Mahsa Amini’s death.
Together, these examples show that public protest remains active across Iran even though its immediate causes differ considerably from one demonstration to another.
Sources:
IranWire: Retirees Gather in Several Iranian Cities, Demanding Release of Prisoners and End to Discrimination
Hengaw Organization for Human Rights: General Strike Across Kurdistan Marks Fourth Anniversary of Jina Amini’s Killing
How Have the Iran Protests Changed Since January?
Iran protests today are far more dispersed than during the extraordinary burst of nationwide mass mobilisation in January. That does not establish that Iranians have abandoned resistance; it shows that the conditions and methods of public opposition have changed.
What Made the January Protests Different?
The protests that began on December 28, 2025 spread with remarkable speed. What started with merchants closing shops in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar over the collapsing rial and worsening economic conditions developed into demonstrations across all 31 provinces. By January 8, protest activity was geographically widespread and increasingly included demands for fundamental political change.
The defining feature was concentration. Large numbers of people were acting during the same short period, across different cities and social groups. That made the protests highly visible, but it also brought protesters into direct confrontation with security forces on a scale rarely seen in Iran.
Sources:
Amnesty International: What Happened at the Protests in Iran?
Human Rights Watch: Iranian Authorities Brutally Repressing Protests
Has Resistance Become More Fragmented?
What is visible now is much less concentrated. Instead of one enormous protest wave, different groups are acting at different times, in different places and around different grievances.
That distinction is important. Fragmentation can make resistance look weaker when the size of street demonstrations is used as the main measure of activity. But mass mobilisation also became extraordinarily costly in January. The violent crackdown was accompanied by mass arrests, heavily armed security deployments, curfews and severe communications restrictions.
It would go too far to claim that today’s smaller protests represent a coordinated strategy designed in response. There is no evidence of one organisation directing workers, pensioners, women, Kurdish activists and other groups into a new model of resistance.
What the evidence does support is a more limited conclusion: collective action has continued while becoming less concentrated than it was in January. The next question is therefore whether resistance should still be measured primarily by the number of people gathering in the same streets at the same time.
Sources:
UK Home Office: Country Bulletin Iran — Protests of December 2025 to January 2026
Reuters: Iran Protests Abate After Deadly Crackdown
Why Has Everyday Defiance Become Important in Iran?
Everyday defiance has become important because resistance in Iran is no longer visible only through demonstrations. Some Iranians are challenging state restrictions through ordinary public behaviour that is harder to separate from daily life, turning noncompliance itself into a form of civil resistance.
Civil resistance does not always require thousands of people to assemble at the same place and time. When rules depend on widespread compliance, repeated individual refusal can create a different challenge: authorities must decide how extensively they are willing and able to enforce them.
Why Are Iranian Women Still Defying Compulsory Hijab?
For many Iranian women, rejecting compulsory hijab has moved beyond the organised protests that followed Amini’s death and become part of everyday public life. Women continue to appear without headscarves despite compulsory hijab remaining legally in force.
Recent reporting from inside Tehran describes women without headscarves in cafés and other public spaces, alongside women and men exercising together and informal street performances that would previously have risked much more immediate intervention. The change is visible enough that opposition to compulsory hijab can no longer be measured simply by attendance at demonstrations.
The significance lies partly in repetition. One woman removing her headscarf can be punished as an individual violation. Large numbers of women repeatedly making the same choice turn enforcement into a much broader problem. The state must either tolerate widespread noncompliance or devote considerable resources and political capital to reversing it.
That does not mean every woman without a hijab is making the same political statement. But widespread refusal to follow a compulsory state rule shows how resistance can persist without taking the form of a conventional protest.
Sources:
Jon Gambrell, Associated Press: Iran Hesitates to Clamp Down on Defiance of Headscarf Rules as War and Economic Pressures Mount
Why Doesn't Iran Simply Enforce the Hijab Rules?
Why Do Economic Protests Matter to Iran's Wider Resistance?
When Does an Economic Grievance Become Political?
The distinction begins to blur when protesters move beyond demanding more money or better services and start identifying state institutions, corruption or political priorities as the reason those rights are being denied.
That shift is visible in some recent demonstrations. In September, telecommunications retirees protested not only over pensions and supplementary insurance but accused institutions connected to the state and IRGC of depriving them of their rights. Social Security retirees in several cities also reportedly linked inflation and inadequate pensions to corruption and government mismanagement.
These reports come from the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an opposition organisation, so its characterisation of the protests should not be treated as independent reporting. The specific slogans it reports are nevertheless useful in showing why the distinction matters: demands that begin with household finances can expand into criticism of the institutions responsible for managing them. NCR Iran
That is where economic protest becomes relevant to Iran’s wider resistance. People do not need to begin with the same political objective for repeated disputes over wages, pensions or public services to challenge confidence in the institutions governing their lives.
Sources:
National Council of Resistance of Iran: Iran — Protests by Oppressed Strata in Various Cities
How Has Repression Changed the Way Iranians Resist?
Repression has made highly visible resistance far more dangerous, changing the choices available to Iranians who want to challenge the state. The evidence does not prove that today’s more fragmented resistance is one coordinated strategy, but it does show why large, identifiable and openly organised opposition now carries extraordinary risks.
The consequences of the January protests did not end when the largest demonstrations subsided. Iranian security and intelligence forces continued arresting protesters in streets, at checkpoints and during home raids. Human Rights Watch documented mass arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, torture and the use of unofficial detention facilities in the aftermath of the uprising.
That changes the calculation for anyone considering visible participation. Joining a demonstration is one risk; organising one, becoming identifiable or maintaining contact with other activists can create risks that continue long after the crowd has dispersed.
Sources:
Human Rights Watch: Iran: Tsunami of Arbitrary Arrests, Enforced Disappearances
Have Executions Made Public Resistance More Dangerous?
Yes. Executions have extended the potential consequences of protest far beyond what happens on the street, creating a threat that can follow protesters months after their participation.
Between March 18 and the end of August, Iranian authorities executed at least 59 men on politically motivated national-security charges following proceedings that Human Rights Watch and the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center described as grossly unfair. At least 29 had been arrested in connection with the December 2025–January 2026 protests. Five executions were carried out publicly.
The pressure extends beyond those sentenced to death. Authorities have also opened criminal cases against people opposing executions, while relatives of prisoners may fear speaking publicly about their cases. A July Ministry of Intelligence directive further criminalised contact with hundreds of media outlets, human-rights organisations and activists designated as “enemies.”
The effect is broader than punishment of individuals already arrested. It raises the potential cost of being identified, organising publicly and even drawing outside attention to repression.
Sources:
Human Rights Watch and Abdorrahman Boroumand Center: Iran: Ongoing Unlawful Execution Campaign Against Protesters
Does Repression Push Resistance Into Less Visible Forms?
There are reasons to think repression can make less visible forms of resistance more important, but the current evidence does not justify claiming that Iranians have collectively adopted a deliberate underground strategy.
What can be observed is a change in where resistance appears. Mass demonstrations are no longer the only useful measure. It would go too far to claim that today’s smaller protests represent a coordinated strategy designed in response.
The forms of resistance documented elsewhere in this article illustrate why visibility alone is an imperfect measure. Smaller collective actions and individual acts of noncompliance require less concentration of people in one identifiable place than a mass demonstration does.
That distinction matters. Repression can reduce the visibility of resistance without necessarily eliminating the willingness to resist. When gathering openly becomes exceptionally dangerous, the important question is no longer only how many people appear in the street, but what other forms refusal begins to take.
Is Underground Resistance Becoming More Important in Iran?
Underground resistance remains active inside Iran, but there is not yet enough independent evidence to conclude that it has become the dominant form of opposition or developed into a unified nationwide insurgency. What is clearer is that Iranian authorities continue to confront small clandestine and armed networks while opposition groups report a wider campaign of sabotage against institutions associated with repression.
One recent development came in September, when Iranian authorities announced the arrest of an eight-member alleged pro-monarchy armed cell in Fars Province. Authorities accused the group of involvement in Molotov-cocktail attacks during the January uprising. Iranian officials have also reported clashes and arrests involving other small armed networks in several provinces. Al Jazeera notes that these announcements have become increasingly frequent, although government descriptions of suspects and their affiliations cannot always be independently verified.
Sources:
Al Jazeera: The Domestic Armed Threat Facing Iran
Are Attacks on IRGC and Basij Targets Increasing?
Opposition groups say attacks on institutions associated with the IRGC, Basij and intelligence services are continuing across Iran, but many individual operations cannot be independently verified.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), which is linked to the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), claimed that its Resistance Units carried out 40 operations across Tehran and 20 other cities around the September 16 anniversary of the 2022 uprising. It reported attacks or arson against Basij bases and other regime-linked sites. These are claims by the organisation associated with the operations, not independently confirmed counts, so they should not be treated as proof of their scale or effectiveness.
Their significance is therefore still uncertain. The evidence supports the existence of continuing clandestine resistance; it does not yet establish that these separate networks are coordinating into a force capable of challenging nationwide state control.
We examined the attacks on IRGC, Basij and other state-linked targets in more detail in our earlier article on underground resistance in Iran.
Sources:
National Council of Resistance of Iran: Resistance Units Conduct 40 Operations Across 21 Iranian Cities to Honor 2022 Uprising Martyrs
Is Iran Seeing One Resistance Movement — or Many?
Iran is not facing one unified resistance movement. Women rejecting compulsory hijab, striking workers, pensioners, Kurdish activists and underground opposition groups can challenge the same political system while having very different grievances, objectives and methods.
That distinction matters because political opposition does not require a single organisation behind every act of resistance. Iran’s opposition has long been fragmented among monarchists, republicans, the MEK, Kurdish and other minority movements, labour activists and movements centred on civil and women’s rights. Reuters reported during the January uprising that these groups remained divided and that organised opposition had only a limited presence inside Iran.
The protests themselves are broader than those formal opposition organisations. A woman refusing compulsory hijab does not need to support the same political programme as a Kurdish activist. A retiree demanding a viable pension does not automatically share the objectives of an underground group attacking a Basij facility.
That makes Iran’s current resistance harder to describe as a single movement. But fragmentation does not make each form of noncompliance politically irrelevant. A state can face pressure from different parts of society simultaneously even when those people have never agreed on what should replace it.
Sources:
Parisa Hafezi and Angus McDowall, Reuters via Al-Monitor: Factbox — Who Makes Up Iran’s Fragmented Opposition?
Does Resistance Need a Single Leadership to Matter?
Not necessarily. A central leadership can help coordinate strategy and turn widespread discontent into sustained political pressure, but decentralised resistance can still challenge a state’s ability to secure compliance across society.
Iran illustrates both sides of that equation. The absence of a unified opposition makes it more difficult to coordinate different groups around common objectives. During the January protests, no single leader inside Iran emerged who could credibly claim to represent the wider movement, while opposition organisations inside and outside the country pursued substantially different political goals.
At the same time, the state does not confront only formal opposition organisations. It must respond separately to labour unrest, women’s civil disobedience, minority activism, economic protests and clandestine groups. Those pressures do not automatically reinforce one another, and disagreement between them can limit their political impact.
The more important question is therefore not whether all Iranian resistance can be placed under one banner. It is whether separate forms of noncompliance remain isolated, or begin to overlap and reinforce one another.
That distinction becomes important when assessing what could mark the next phase of the Iran protests.
Sources:
Al Jazeera: Which Are Iran’s Main Opposition Groups?
What Would Show That Iran's Resistance Is Entering a New Phase?
A new phase in Iran’s resistance would not be defined simply by more demonstrations. More significant would be evidence that currently separate forms of dissent are beginning to connect: workers striking across sectors, students joining labour action, protests spreading simultaneously between regions, or resistance continuing long enough to overcome the fragmentation visible today.
Iran has already shown that economic grievances can expand rapidly into broader political demands. During the January uprising, protests that began around the currency crisis and economic hardship spread geographically and drew in university students and other groups demanding political change. Carnegie Endowment researchers noted that this ability to turn economic grievances into political ones created a particularly difficult pattern for the state.
The important signal now would therefore be convergence rather than the number of isolated incidents. A pension protest in one city, a university demonstration elsewhere and a strike at an industrial site may each matter, but they become politically different if those groups begin acting at the same time, supporting one another or adopting overlapping demands.
Sources:
Nicole Grajewski, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: Iran’s Protests Are Following a Familiar Pattern
Why Would Loyalty Shifts Inside the State Matter?
One of the most consequential changes would be credible evidence that parts of the institutions responsible for maintaining state authority are becoming unwilling to enforce it. So far, Iran’s security apparatus has remained sufficiently cohesive to suppress mass mobilisation.
Comparative research on recent uprisings against authoritarian governments suggests that enormous crowds alone are often insufficient. In cases where protests produced major political change, an important additional factor was fragmentation within the ruling system, with elements of the military, judiciary or bureaucracy distancing themselves from those in power.
That does not mean such a shift is currently occurring in Iran. Evidence of isolated dissatisfaction or an individual defection would also be very different from institutional fragmentation. What would matter is a repeated pattern: security personnel refusing orders, officials publicly breaking with the state, or parts of government becoming unwilling to participate in repression.
Sources:
Thomas Carothers and McKenzie Carrier, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: When Do Mass Protests Topple Autocrats?
What Should We Watch for Next?
The clearest sign of change would be different pressures beginning to reinforce one another rather than remaining separate.
That could mean labour strikes spreading between industries, students and workers supporting the same actions, protests appearing simultaneously across multiple provinces, or economic demands increasingly overlapping with demands for political change. Another significant development would be sustained mobilisation that survives repeated attempts to suppress it.
None of those developments would by itself mean that the Islamic Republic was approaching collapse. Iran’s January uprising demonstrated that even extraordinarily large protests can be suppressed when the security apparatus remains cohesive.
But if Iran’s currently fragmented forms of resistance begin connecting across social groups, regions and institutions, the country would be entering a materially different phase from the one visible today.
What Does Nick Berg's Shadows of Tehran Reveal About Resistance and Obedience?
Nick Berg‘s Shadows of Tehran shows political power at its most personal: the moment when authority stops being an abstract system and becomes a choice about whether to cooperate, remain silent or refuse.
Ricardo grows up during the Iranian Revolution, when political upheaval reaches directly into his family and his own decisions. His resistance is not presented as a blueprint for how Iranians should confront authority, nor should a fictional character be used to explain the choices of millions of people living in Iran today. What the novel captures is the smaller human calculation beneath political resistance: what someone is willing to accept, what they fear losing, and when compliance begins to carry a cost of its own.
That distinction helps make sense of the different forms of resistance visible in Iran in 2026. A woman refusing compulsory hijab, a worker joining a strike, a pensioner challenging an institution or an activist operating underground is not necessarily pursuing the same objective or accepting the same level of risk.
They do, however, expose the same limitation of political power that runs through Berg’s novel. A state can demand obedience and punish refusal, but every demand still reaches an individual who must decide how to respond.
Nick Berg‘s novel therefore brings the larger political question back to the individual: authority may determine the consequences of refusal, but it cannot make the decision on a person’s behalf.
Are the Iran Protests Fading — or Changing Form?
The evidence from Iran protests today points less to the disappearance of resistance than to a change in how it is expressed. Iran is no longer seeing the concentrated mass mobilisation of January, but protests, strikes, civil disobedience and underground activity have continued in different parts of society.
That does not make them one movement. A pensioner demanding economic security, a woman rejecting compulsory hijab and an underground activist may have little else in common. Nor can we assume that today’s fragmented resistance is part of a coordinated strategy.
What matters is that the decline of mass demonstrations has not produced evidence of a broader return to compliance. Instead, resistance has become harder to measure because it is dispersed across different groups, grievances and forms of action.
The next phase will depend partly on whether those pressures remain separate or begin to reinforce one another.
Perhaps the most important change in Iran is not that resistance has become quieter, but that the size of the crowd may no longer tell us how much resistance exists.
