Iran has been alive nationwide protests for almost two weeks, marking the biggest challenge to the country’s ruling regime in years, and President Trump vowing to intervene on the protesters’ side if they face a violent protest.
Initially on IranWith the free fall of the economy and severe inflation, protests have risen, nearly 50 cities have faced demonstrations. A monitoring group has reported thousands of arrests and dozens of deaths since the protests began.
Here’s what you need to know:
How the protests in Iran began and what they have become
The current wave of protests began in late December in the capital Tehran, when shopkeepers went on strike and took to the streets. Iran’s small business owners have long been supporters of the regime, but anger over spiraling inflation and the devaluation of the nation’s currency, which lost more than 40% of its value last year, making everyday goods unaffordable for many, fueled the demonstrations.
The protests quickly spread, with people joining marches across the country to voice not only their economic woes, but also their growing discontent with the country’s harsh regime.
Kamran/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty 
As of Thursday, protests had appeared in at least 46 cities in 21 cities in 21 of the country’s 31 provinces, according to the organization. Human Rights Activists News Agencyor HRANA, a US-based monitoring group founded by anti-regime activists.
There have also been demonstrations on eleven university campuses since late December, and strikes and shop closures in markets in a dozen cities, HRANA said.
Videos posted on social media have been shown almost every night crowds of protesters through the streets of several cities in Iransinging slogans against the government and clashing with the country’s security forces in some cases.
How the Iranian authorities have responded
It has been reported that more than 2,200 people have been arrested since the start of the protest wave, including at least 166 under the age of 18, according to HRANA. According to the group, around 42 people have died, including 29 demonstrators, at least five people under the age of 18 and eight members of the security services.
The semi-official Fars news agency of the Islamic Republic he proclaimed on Monday About 250 policemen and 45 members of the dreaded Basij security force were reportedly injured in the clashes.
Iranian authorities cut off phone service and web access on Thursday overnight across the country, according to internet monitoring organization NetBlocks, which said a “nationwide internet blackout” continued on Friday.
“Even Starlink, which has been the main line of communication for many activists in the country, has been jammed,” Maziar Bahari, editor of the independent news site IranWire, told CBS News on Friday, referring to the satellite communications system run by Elon Musk.
CBS News reached out to SpaceX, which runs Starlink, for comment, but did not immediately receive a response.
Trump has warned that he will hit Iran “very hard” if it kills protesters
Mr. Trump has threatened that on a couple of occasions since the protests began, he might have ordered US intervention if Iranian authorities killed protesters. He said in a January 2 message Social Truth: “If Iran (shoots) and brutally kills peaceful demonstrations, which is their habit, the United States of America will come to the rescue.”
“We’re locked and loaded and ready to go,” the president said.
Speaking on Fox News on January 8, Mr Trump said the US was “ready” to hit Iran hard if protesters were killed, but said “mostly, no”.
The president’s comments came just over six months before he did He ordered airstrikes on three of Iran’s nuclear facilitiesin the middle long day’s deadly conflict between Iran and Israel.
Unrest in Iran comes as Mr. Trump takes a more aggressive stance on the world stage.
US forces He captured the former president of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro during an overnight military operation in Caracas, and Mr. Trump has suggested that he is open to military action in Colombia, citing drug trafficking, and control of Greenland.
Alex Vatanka, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute that studies Iran, told CBS News last week that Mr. Trump’s gestures of support could embolden Iranian protesters, saying his comments could be “an ingredient you need to keep the street movement alive.”
IranWire’s Bahari said Iranian officials had told them they were concerned about Mr. Trump’s intervention in Iran before the protests began.
The latest US attack on Venezuela has “terrified many Iranian officials and may affect their actions in dealing with the protesters. But at the same time, it has encouraged many protesters to come out because they know the leader of the world’s major superpower is championing their cause.”
Iran’s leaders acknowledge the problems, but blame the US
In a state-televised address on Friday after a night of intense protests, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed his regime “will not back down”, called for unity and accused a “bunch of vandals” in Tehran of wreaking havoc in the capital “to please the US president”.
In some cases, Iranian officials have tried to strike a conciliatory tone, acknowledging the public’s position. economic concerns and emphasizing that people have the right to protest peacefully. State media reported that President Masoud Pezeshkian had it directed by the security forces not to oppress peaceful protesters.
The government has also offered some relief through a subsidy of $7 a month, which can be used to buy basic necessities at grocery stores.
It has been done by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran Mr Trump rejected threats of US interventionAccusing the US of “inciting violence and terrorism”.
Commander-in-Chief of the Iranian Army General Amir Hatami he threatened on Wednesday “to cut off the hand of any aggressor”.
History of mass protests in Iran
Protests—and harsh repression—are recurring themes in Iran.
The last major round of protests was in 2022, prompted by the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by the theocratic government forces for allegedly wearing a headscarf improperly. There were hundreds of people die during the months of demonstrations.
Other protest movements joined 2019 and 2017and it was Iran In 2009 hit by a large-scale uprising in the country’s contested presidential elections.
“From social media channels and conversations with different people in Iran, the number of protesters in different parts of the country is not as high as in 2022, but there are more protests, the protests are more widespread in different parts of the country,” Bahari told CBS News. “So even some of the smaller cities that have never had protests in those cities, they’re seeing protests these days, and I think people are more desperate than before.”
The current protests look different from previous rounds — and may be harder for the regime to appease by offering concessions — because of their roots in the country’s economic woes, according to Mona Yacoubian, director and senior adviser to the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
He noted that in 2022, the regime was able to appease the protesters by “simply addressing the complaints about the covering of women and so on.”
But protesters are now more focused on economic issues, and “there is nothing (the regime) can do” to fix Iran’s moribund economy, he said.
“These protests are about the economic situation, but also about dignity,” Bahari told CBS News. “It’s about national pride. And because of that, this protest is going to be very, very difficult to sustain.”
Iran’s Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi encourages the protests
Iran’s Prince Reza Pahlavi, whose father, the former shah, fled before the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought the current clerical regime to power, has cheered protests from exile, urging protesters this week to keep the movement “disciplined” and “as broad as possible”.
JOEL SAGET/AFP via Getty Images 
The crown prince called on Iranians to sing together against the country’s leader on Thursday and Friday at 8:00 p.m. local time or 12:00 a.m. Eastern, and many reportedly responded to his call.
Pahlavi’s call to action “could be a turning point” in the protest movement, Yacoubian told CBS News on Thursday.
“This is a regime that is not afraid to use lethal force,” Yacoubian said. “But the point is, to what extent they are overrun, the protests increase enormously and whether there are elements in the security forces, the police, etc., somehow at that local level, who are suffering the consequences of this economic crisis and who decide not to shoot people: these are the questions that I think we need to see.”