Civil unrest and protests against the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran associated with the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini (Persian: مهسا امینی) began on 16 September 2022 and carried on into 2023, but by spring 2023, the protests had largely subsided, ultimately leaving the political leadership unchanged and firmly entrenched in power. The protests were described as "unlike any the country had seen before", the "biggest challenge" to the government, and "most widespread revolt" since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Amini was arrested by the Guidance Patrol on 13 September 2022 for allegedly violating Iran's mandatory hijab law by wearing her hijab "improperly" while visiting Tehran from Saqqez. According to eyewitnesses, she was severely beaten by Guidance Patrol officers (this was denied by Iranian authorities). She subsequently collapsed, was hospitalized and died three days later. As the protests spread from Amini's hometown of Saqqez to other cities in the Iranian Kurdistan and throughout Iran, the government responded with widespread Internet blackouts, nationwide restrictions on social media usage, tear gas and gunfire.
Although the protests have not been as deadly as those in 2019 (when more than 1,500 were killed), they have been "nationwide, spread across social classes, universities, the streets [and] schools". At least 551 people, including 68 minors, had been killed as a result of the government's intervention in the protests, as of 15 September 2023. Before February 2023 when most were pardoned, an estimated 19,262 were arrested across at least 134 cities and towns and 132 universities.
Female protesters, including schoolchildren, have played a key role in the demonstrations. In addition to demands for increased rights for women, the protests have demanded the overthrow of the Islamic Republic, setting them apart from previous major protest movements in Iran, which have focused on election results or economic woes. The government's response to the protests and its "brutal and disproportionate use of force against peaceful protesters and children" was widely condemned, but Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei dismissed the unrest as "riots" and part of a "hybrid war" against Iran created by foreign enemy states and dissidents abroad.
On 2 February 2024, the UN Human Rights Council's Fact-Finding Mission released a report which found the Iranian regime committed systematic crimes against humanity.
On 16 September 2026, Amnesty International reported that the Iranian regime instigated the killing, torture, and sexual abuse of protesters during the Mahsa Amini protests, adding that the subsequent suppression of the 2025–2026 Iranian protests exhibited similar characteristics, but on a larger scale.
Background
Condition of women and the Islamic Republic
Among the primary tenets of the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution was the need to overthrow the (allegedly) anti-Islamic, oppressive and foreign power-controlled monarchy of Iran. The secular, modernizing Pahlavi dynasty, founded by Reza Shah in the early twentieth century (1925), had placed the improved treatment of women at the center of its project to modernize Iran. Reza banned the wearing of hijab in public and admitted women to universities. During the reign of his successor and son Mohammad Reza, restrictions on the wearing of hijab were lifted but women were granted suffrage, allowed to enter parliament, and "gained dramatically more rights in marriage".
The Revolution rescinded the legal rights the Pahlavi Shahs granted women, removed restrictions on men's rights to polygamy and child marriage, and reversed Reza's ban on hijab to make the complete covering of women's hair in public compulsory. Enforcement of the unpopular law was eased during the 2013–2021 tenure of moderate President Rouhani, but intensified under Rouhani's successor, the hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi.
At the same time as rights were taken away, some aspects of the lives of women and girls improved. Traditional pious Iranians—who had kept their daughters out of school during the Shah's era—now felt comfortable allowing their daughters to be schooled in an Islamic educational system. Enrollment of women in universities jumped from 3% in 1977 to 67% in 2015, according to the World Bank statistics. But many of the women who left home to study and developed new values and world views, struggled to secure jobs that matched their new competencies, and became less content with the Islamic Republic than their parents.
Protest movements under the Islamic Republic
The Mahsa Amini protests were preceded by several other political/social/economic protest movements in Iran, in 1999, 2009, 2011–2012, 2019–2020, and protests against compulsory hijab in 2017–18.
Most recently were a series of protests in 2019, "Bloody Aban" (Persian: آبان خونین, a month near November in the Iranian calendar), sparked by a 50–200% increase in fuel prices. Like the Mahsa Amini protests, these protests eventually called for the overthrow of the government of the Islamic Republic and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Mahsa Amini's arrest and death in custody
Mahsa Amini, also Jina Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman, was arrested by the Guidance Patrol on 14 September 2022 because of an "improper hijab." The police were accused of beating her and inflicting a fatal head injury, after a CT scan confirmed that Amini had sustained head injuries, a claim denied by Tehran police. She was pronounced dead on 16 September.
Protests
Protests started in Tehran as Mahsa Amini was being treated at a hospital there, and continued at her funeral in Saqqez, where hundreds of people reportedly gathered in defiance of official warnings and were fired upon when they shouted anti-regime slogans. Protests spread to the provincial capital. Internet service and mobile phone service were shut down, and the head of the Guidance Patrol was allegedly suspended. By 20 September there were unconfirmed social media videos showed anti-government protests in at least 16 of Iran's 31 provinces, and state media reported that three people had been killed in Kurdistan protests.
Two weeks after the funeral, forty civilian were killed and many wounded in Zahedan in Sistan and Baluchestan province following Friday prayers, after protests sparked by reports of a police chief who had raped a 15-year-old girl in Chahbahar. A Mahsa Amini hashtag gained 52 million tweets.
By early December 2022, a "vague" statement made by the attorney general was interpreted by some in the Western press to mean that the hijab law was under review and that the Guidance Patrol might be disbanded. The report was later attacked as a "diversion tactic" by the regime.
The protests became more widespread than those of 2009, 2017, and 2019, encompassing even Islamic Republic power bases such as the holy cities of Mashhad and Qom, involving both urban middle classes and rural working areas. In addition, schoolgirls demonstrated in numbers for the first time.
By February 2023, the regime stated it had arrested tens of thousands of protesters.
According to France 24, by mid-March 2023 protests "had dwindled" across most of the country. On 13 March, the government claimed it had pardoned 22,000 citizens arrested for protesting.
Slogans and grievances
The signature slogan of the protests has been "Woman, Life, Freedom" which reflects the idea that "the rights of women are at the centre of life and liberty".
The slogan was popularized during women's marches in Turkey in 2006 in the Kurdish Freedom Movement, and reflects the idea of Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, that "a country can't be free unless the women are free."
Kurds emphasize the Kurdish origin of the slogan, and its connection to Mahsa Amini's Kurdish first name: Jina. In Kurdish, the word jin means "woman". Kurdish and minority rights are subjects of the protest—Kurds make up approximately 15% of Iran's population, are predominately Sunni Muslims (also a minority), the regions they live are among the most impoverished in the country, the use of their languages is restricted, they account for nearly half of all political prisoners in Iran, and have felt much of the brunt of anti-protest attacks by the government (which attacked predominantly Kurdish cities, like Sanandaj and Oshnavieh) who according to news reports, blamed the Kurds for the protest movement.
Other slogans collected by Iranwire early in the protests include comments against the Supreme Leader (“Death to the Dictator”, ”Khamenei is a Murderer, an Illegitimate Ruler”, “Death to Khamenei”), the Basij (“Undignified Basiji, You are Our ISIS”), the Islamic Republic (“We Don’t Want the Islamic Republic”); praise for Mahsa, and for the modernist monarch Reza; and comments of defiance (“Iranians Die but Will Not Be Suppressed”).
As demonstrated by the slogans and banners of the demonstrators, protesters appear to be demanding a wholesale change in government rather than just incremental reforms. Grievances expressed in the protest go beyond those of many previous Iranian protests, and beyond protesting Amini's death, demanding an end to the mandatory hijab, an end to the morality police, the Supreme Leader, the theocratic regime,
and to human rights violations perpetrated by Iran's Guidance Patrol.
Iranian public opinion
In a November 2022 poll by Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAMAAN), almost three-quarters of Iranians opposed mandatory hijab; of this population, 84% prefer a secular Iranian state to theocracy, which GAMAAN characterized as an endorsement of regime change. According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, economic hardship and poor living conditions contributed to the growth of the protests. The New York Times itemized Iranian grievances such as "soaring prices, high unemployment, corruption, (and) political repression", and identified the poor Iranian economy as a major driving force behind the protests. According to an Iranian report in August 2021, a third of Iranians live in poverty. Abdolreza Davari, a conservative analyst, quoted a statistic that 95 percent of Iranians are "worried about their livelihoods today and for their and their children's future." Only 15% of Iranians in the job market are women. Iran ranked 143rd out of 146 countries in the 2022 WEF Gender Gap Report, due in part to prohibitions on female membership in powerful government organizations.
Protest techniques
Protesters often stage small and quick, but numerous, "flash mob"-style gatherings. Drivers have blocked streets with their cars to slow down security forces. Roads have also been blocked by dumpster bins or even overturned police cars. Security forces on motorbikes cut through traffic, while firing on protesters. In some cases, security forces used paintballs to mark demonstrators. Some demonstrators packed extra clothes to replace painted clothes, wore masks to avoid identification, and dismantled public security cameras. Some protesters chanted from windows or rooftops. Symbolic protests include dyeing fountains blood-red, and women discarding and burning their hijabs or cutting their hair in public. Since turbans are viewed as a symbol of the regime, some Iranians engaged in turban throwing (knocking the turbans off of "privileged" Iranian clerics on the street and running away). Reformers such as Ahmad Zaidabadi criticized the trend as being unfair to Islamic scholars not involved with the regime.
Civil boycotts
Some university teachers and professors declared their support for the student movement by boycotting classes or resigning. They included Nasrollah Hekmat (Shahid Beheshti University), Ammar Ashoori (Islamic Azad University), Lili Galehdaran (Shiraz Art University), Gholamreza Shahbazi (Art and Soureh Universities), Alireza Bahraini, Shahram Khazaei, Encieh Erfani (Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences) and Azin Movahed (Sharif University of Technology, Tehran).
On 5 to 7 December 2022, a general strike took place to put pressure on the regime.
Protesters called for boycotts against goods manufactured by businesses reportedly tied to the regime, two examples being a major manufacturer of groceries and home goods as well as "Iran’s version of Amazon, Digikala".
Coverage of the protest was constrained by Iranian restrictions on speech, including internet shutdowns and arrests of journalists, such that "the vast majority" of Western media outlets had no presence in Iran (with the exception of NBC News) and had to obtain information from networks of contacts, human rights groups, and social media content. According to BBC News Persian Service, Iranian government disinformation contaminated social media as an information source, which must therefore be used with care. The Iranian government "have a cyber army and they massively produce social media videos, even fake interviews." When foreign media quote them, it would be charged by the Iranian government for "reporting fake news".
Casualties, government response
The government crackdown on the protests has been described as "intense" and "deadly".
Casualties
At least 551 people had been killed as of 15 September 2023, according to Iran Human Rights, including women and at least 68 minors. Death certificates obtained by Human Rights Activists in Iran, HRANA, confirm that many died from live bullets. The Norway-based group, Iran Human Rights, stated that with the current Internet blackouts, it was difficult to get accurate and up-to-date figures. In addition to Amini herself, the death of several women protesters, including Nika Shakarami, Hadis Najafi and Sarina Esmailzadeh, were widely reported by the media. According to the families of deceased protesters, Iranian authorities have covered up killings of protesters by pressuring the families of victims, and by fabricating reports of suicides or car accidents.
Government casualties
The Islamic Republican government has emphasized the loss of life from the government security forces (such as the Basij paramilitary volunteers and Revolutionary Guards), reporting that by 6 January 2023, 68 security force members had been killed in the unrest. However, according to BBC Persian service, these figures may not be reliable as some of those reported by state media to be loyalist Basij militiamen killed by the "rioters" were actually protesters killed by security forces. Security forces (using state media to put out this story) had pressured the families of the deceased to go along with the false reporting, allegedly threatening them with death if they failed to cooperate.