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Iranian protesters are bringing the regime to halt over the cost of living crisis plaguing the Islamic Republic — with $1 now worth 1.4 million Iranian rials.
The demonstrations, which started earlier this week, have spread to Iran’s rural areas, where residents are facing the hardest blows in the face of Iran’s ailing economy.
While President Masoud Pezeshkian has signaled his willingness to negotiate with protests, the leader admitted that there’s not much he can do when Iran’s rial currency has plummeted to record lows.
The failing economy led furious consumers and shopkeepers in Tehran to launch protests aimed at lawmakers’ mismanagement, with the demonstrations spreading across Iran on Thursday.
Economists and reporters had long warned officials of the cost of living crisis afflicting the nation, with Iran International highlighting the rial’s plummet in November when it found that local favorite Tarom Hashemi rice was costing the average person up to 4 million rials per kilogram — or $3.56 per pound.
That price represented a 230% surge from the same time last year, with similar increases afflicting other popular goods as consumer price inflation rate soars to 48.6%.
“[Ayatollah] Ali Khamenei has spent over four decades chasing war, missiles and chanting, ‘Death to this or that.’ Now we can’t even afford rice,” one shopper in Karaj told Iran International.
Even cheap gasoline, which Iranians view as a birthright, had seen a spike in December that triggered outrage and forced the government to implement new subsidies to calm the masses.
The protests — which are centered on the all-important bazaars where most local buy their daily goods — have now shut down businesses, universities, and government offices across the country, with people turning Khamenei’s chants against him with shouts of, “Death to the dictator.”
While the demonstrations in Tehran have slowed, they have gained momentum in other parts of the country and turned violent, with officials reporting three deaths in the recent clashes between protesters and security forces.
A 21-year-old volunteer officer with the Revolutionary Guard’s Basij force was killed during a protest Wednesday night, according to the state-run IRNA news agency, which blamed demonstrators.
The Guard member “was martyred … at the hands of rioters during protests in this city in defense of public order,” said Saeed Pourali, a deputy governor in Iran’s Lorestan province.
“The protests that have occurred are due to economic pressures, inflation and currency fluctuations, and are an expression of livelihood concerns,” he added. “The voices of citizens must be heard carefully and tactfully, but people must not allow their demands to be strained by profit-seeking individuals.”
The Washington-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran identified the two other deaths as protesters killed at a demonstration in the city of Lordegan.
Rather than directly tackle the economic woes facing the nation, Pezeshkian claimed that foreign interference was the cause of the civil unrest, Al Jazeera reported.
“Right now, the enemy has placed most of its hopes on knocking us down through economic pressure. You cannot conquer a nation with bombs, fighter jets, or missiles,” he said at a business forum in Tehran.
“And if they were to confront this nation on the ground, if we remain determined, united, and committed to working together to make our country proud, it would be impossible for them to bring Iran to its knees,” he added.
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