The 2019–2020 Iranian protests, sometimes known by the protesters as Bloody November or (using the Iranian calendar) Bloody Aban (Persian: آبان خونین), were a series of nationwide civil protests in Iran that took place in 2019 and 2020. Initially caused by a 50–200% increase in fuel prices, they occurred as part of the wider Iranian Democracy Movement, leading to calls for the overthrow of the government in Iran and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The protests commenced as peaceful gatherings on the evening of 15 November but spread to 21 cities within hours, as videos of the protest circulated online, eventually becoming the most violent and severe anti-government unrest since the Iranian Revolution in 1979.
To block the sharing of information regarding the protests and the deaths of hundreds of protesters on social media platforms, the government shut down the Internet nationwide, resulting in a near-total internet blackout of around six days. In an effort to crush the protests, the Iranian government (according to Amnesty International) shot protesters dead from rooftops, helicopters, and at close range with machine gun fire. In an effort to mask the scale and casualty count of the protests, it hauled away large numbers of bodies of the dead protesters, and threatened families of slain protesters not to speak to the media or hold funerals.
As many as 2,000 Iranian protesters were killed. The government crackdown and protests resulted in the destruction of 731 government banks including Iran's central bank, nine Islamic religious centres, protesters tearing down anti-American billboards, and posters and statues of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as well as former leader Ruhollah Khomeini. Fifty government military bases were also attacked by protesters. The Iranian regime also employed a week long nationwide internet shutdown becoming the longest total Internet shutdown in a large country. It was also the first blackout that effectively isolated a whole nation.
The uprising, as well as the wider Iranian Democracy Movement in general, differed from earlier protests in 2009 in not being limited to students and large cities, and in the speed, severity and higher death toll of the government crackdown, which crushed the uprising in three days, although protests flared up periodically in the months after.
Background
The protests, which have occurred at various stages and times since the mid-2010s, increasing in both support and number each time, have found popular support amongst many Iranians. They have the intention of removing the Iranian government and addressing both economic and social issues within Iran, and are often fueled by low wages, unemployment, inflation, government corruption, an ongoing water crisis, disillusion amongst Iranian youth and by their Burnt Generation parents with the government's Islamist, anti-Western outlook, the isolation of Iran internationally, Iranian nationalist fervor and the government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The protests have been credited with being the largest challenge to the Islamic regime since the Iranian Revolution in 1978–1979, being characterised by a wider geographical spread, more diverse class and societal composition, a much more explicit defiance in its challenge of state authority, and a reduced aversion to enduring violence by dissenters, in a manner that previous Iranian protests such as those in 1999 and 2009 did not display.
This period of time coincided with a marked escalation in the Iran-Israel proxy conflict, and a "maximum pressure" campaign of sanctions imposed on the regime by the United States as punishment for its nuclear programs in violation of the JCPOA, and for its financing of terrorist proxies such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis.
Iran has experienced numerous nationwide protests and civil unrest since 2016, including the 2016 Cyrus the Great Revolt, 2017–2018 Iranian protests, 2018–2019 Iranian general strikes and protests, Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 protests (in January 2020).
Sanctions by the United States and the European Union, coupled with economic mismanagement, were factors involved in a severe economic crisis in Iran in the 2010s.
Multiple protests and strikes took place in Iran in December 2017, throughout 2018 and in the first half of 2019. Protest causes ranged from rising prices to teachers' and railway workers' rights.
Prior to the November 2019 cycle of unrest, the president of Iran Hassan Rouhani said, "Iran is experiencing one of its hardest years since the 1979 Islamic revolution". According to an estimate by Djavad Salehi-Isfahani cited in the Atlantic Council, inflation sent nearly 1.6 million Iranians into poverty in just a single year prior to the November 2019 protest, with a similar figure given by the Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation's office for employment and social welfare.
One of the grievances of the protesters was thought to be the privileges of the Islamic Republic's elite. During this time of economic hardship, a decree issued by the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei exempted some trustees from paying taxes. They included Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarters and many other smaller entities belonging to Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
In September 2019, just two months before the uprising, a former member of Iran's Parliament, Behzad Nabavi, told an interviewer that the Razavi Economic Foundation (which is presided over by Khamenei), together with the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and the Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS), controls about 60% of the Iranian economy. None of these entities pay any taxes and no government organization is allowed to go through their books.
In late 2019, anti-government protests took place in Iranian allies Lebanon and Iraq.
The immediate cause of the protest was the increase in price of fuel, which was announced by the government at midnight on 15 November 2019. Prior to the price increase, drivers could buy up to 250 litres (66 US gal) each month for 10,000 Iranian rial per litre ($0.90 per US gallon). With the new price structure prices started at 15,000 rial per litre ($1.35 per US gallon) for the first 60 litres (16 US gal), and rose to 30,000 per litre ($2.70 per US gallon) after that, a price increase of 50% to 200%. An Iranian state-television programme described these measures as a way to help fund the subsidies of around 60 million Iranians. Besides toppling the regime, the protest movement is aimed at poverty, issues and corruption in the economy, especially higher wages and pensions.
Timeline
2019
November 2019
After the government announced the price increase in the early hours of 15 November, Iranians in various cities (37 cities according to reports by citizen journalists and social media) took to the streets to protest.
One protester was reportedly killed in Sirjan after security forces opened fire, while the governor said that the death had occurred under unclear circumstances. Other demonstrators in the city set fire to a gas station, and chanted "Rouhani, leave the country alone". Protesters in Ahvaz demanded that people boycott fuel and stop their cars in the middle of the road as a sign of protest.
In Mashhad, Iran's second-largest city, demonstrators blocked traffic in the streets and highways, turning them into parking lots. Protesters gathered late into the night in Qods, a suburb of Tehran, and destroyed a police vehicle. Protests were peaceful at first, as was the state response.
Protests continued to expand for a second day on 16 November. Demonstrators gathered in over 50 cities and many major cities such as Tehran, Tabriz, Isfahan, and Shiraz to protest the sudden price hike. Security forces shot at protesters with live bullets in an effort to disperse them, killing at least ten protesters in Isfahan, Behbahan, Kermanshah, Karaj, and Shiraz.
Several banks in Eslamshahr, Behbahan, and Tehran, and one religious school in Isfahan were burned down by protesters. In Shahriar demonstrators burned down a monument depicting the ring of the Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic.
On 16 November, internet access across the country was reported to be in a near-total shutdown, with online activity estimated to be 7% of ordinary levels.
State news agencies reported that over 1,000 people had been arrested by the 16th, and that the protests had spread to over 100 cities in Iran.
Shop owners in Tehran and Isfahan closed the bazaars and went on strike in protest. While in Tabriz, students from the University of Tabriz left their classes and demonstrated at the university.
Students at the University of Tehran gathered for a second day to protest on 16 November, the current situation in the country and chanted "Death to the dictator", and "Not Gaza, not Lebanon, my life only for Iran". Protests continued in the Sadeghiyeh neighbourhood of Tehran, and the bazaar was packed with security forces attempting to prevent bazaar merchants from going on strike. Citizens of Tehran reported that despite the internet shutdown, the protests gathered in intensity on Tuesday.
Heavy clashes were also reported in Shiraz, where the security forces fired directly at people. Authorities reported that nine Islamic seminaries and Friday prayer offices were burned by protesters across the country. Protests continued for a fifth consecutive day on 19 November despite a heavy security presence the country. Gatherings were reported in Tehran, Karaj, Shiraz and Isfahan. The city of Shush in Khuzestan province, was effectively closed down as Haft Tappeh workers protested the current conditions.
The Revolutionary Guards reportedly took the bodies of the dead protesters and the injured in hospitals, to hide to cover up the true death toll and downplay the protests. In some cases, government officials sold the bodies of the protesters. The protests reached 70% of provinces according to The Guardian.
On 21 November, Iran partially restored access to the internet. Residents of Tehran told The New York Times that the government had finished securing the northern area, but not the middle-class and working-class areas of the city. A 26 November Guardian editorial characterized the protests as "crushed".
December 2019
On 7 December, coinciding with Students Day in Iran, students in Tehran and various other cities conducted demonstrations in support of the protests. In the early hours of 17 December, students at Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran gathered outside the dormitories and protested the killing of protesters.
On 25 December, the day before the 40th day mourning procession of the protesters killed in the November protests, security forces arrested several members of Pouya Bakhtiari's family.
On 26 December, security forces attacked different cemeteries around Iran to prevent the families, of those killed in November uprising, from holding ceremonies in honour of the 40th day of the death of their loved ones. Some of the mourners were arrested and taken away. One month after Iranian rulers fears any anti-government gathering.
January 2020 protests and the beginning of renewed protests and unrest
The January 2020 protests were organised by bus drivers and taxi drivers in Tehran. Anti-regime protests were rising, with this chant, "Death to corrupt officials", heard the most. Seasonal workers in Marivan participated in a strike movement as well, despite attacks by the security forces and intimidation meant to quell public protests that had begun on 24 January triggered by economic grievances. Kangan and Sanandaj experienced protests by oil workers and other sectors, with more that five blockades in protest for having not received any wages. Kaki saw protest rallies over water and fuel shortage crises sparking anger by their citizens for days. Employees in Mahshahr's petrochemical factory protested non-payment of wages and inadequate responses to their demands. Eslamabad Gharb saw Railway workers protesting against not being paid for five months and the halting of their main construction project by the Security Forces. Hundreds of customers were regularly protesting in regular marches against the stock market and central bank crash in Tehran. Buildings in Isfahan were surrounded by hundreds of farmers, repeatedly rallying over poor conditions. Recent protests also took place in Khuzestan and Ahvaz and met with violent reactions from security forces. Locals staged rallies in Ahvaz and Gorgan, protesting imprisonments of protesters and demanding the president Hassan Rouhani to step down. In Khuzestan, bus drivers went on strike in protest to their low wages and the high price of spare parts for their buses.
January 2020
On 11 January, after Iranian authorities had stated that Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 had been shot down by Iranian military forces, killing all 176 passengers and flight personnel, three thousand people protested in Tehran, with chants including "Death to the dictator". Police used tear gas on the protestors. Officials reported that 82 Iranians among several other Iranians with dual citizenship were among the victims of the crash. Hundreds of people protested in front of Amirkabir University of Technology. The protestors called for the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to resign, chanted "Death to the liars" and called "for the IRGC to leave the country". Protests also took place at the Sharif University of Technology and in Isfahan, Rasht, Sari, and Hamedan. Protesters chanted against the Revolutionary Guards, the Supreme Leader, and the entire political system of the Islamic Republic.