Retirees in Iran are now forced to take to the streets in the scorching heat of summer and the freezing cold of winter. They stand in front of Social Security offices and government buildings, risking insults, beatings, arrest, and fabricated legal cases—not for special privileges, but for their most basic rights: a dignified livelihood, accessible healthcare, and the respect earned through a lifetime of work.
For weeks, Sundays have become the day of retirees’ protests in cities across Iran.
The significance of these protests extends beyond their economic demands or the number of participants each week. The “Protest Sundays” have become a recurring public gathering, gradually taking on a meaning that goes beyond a labor-related protest.
What gives these protests political and social weight is their persistence. Through their repeated presence, retirees prevent government promises, waves of repression, or new crises from pushing their demands aside.
Iranian Regime Executes Two More Protesters from the January Uprising
A group denied the right to form independent and free organizations has, in this way, created an informal institution—one without offices, budgets, or official platforms, but sustained through continuity, local networks, and shared experience.
A significant part of the protests focuses on enforcing existing laws. Retirees are demanding pensions that reflect the real cost of living, full implementation of pension equalization, payment of overdue benefits, enforcement of Article 96 of Iran’s Social Security Law, and access to free or affordable healthcare.
Why do retirees’ protests matter?
Retirees are among the groups that the Iranian regime has traditionally viewed as low-risk, conservative, and dependent on official institutions. The prevailing assumption is that old age, illness, reliance on healthcare, and dependence on pensions would keep them off the streets. Yet in recent years, this very group has become one of the country’s most persistent forces for labor and civil protest.
The retirees’ movement emerged from economic demands, but at some demonstrations its slogans have expanded to broader social issues. Protests against war, executions, the arrest of labor activists, and the imprisonment of teachers and workers show that parts of the movement have drawn a connection between economic injustice and political repression.
Slogans such as “Enough warmongering, our tables are empty” and “Inflation, high prices, no to war and destruction” show that retirees do not see war and economic hardship as separate issues.
Slogans opposing executions and supporting workers, teachers, and imprisoned activists also expand the boundaries of what would otherwise be a purely labor-related protest. When retirees demand the release of political prisoners and imprisoned labor activists, the issue of pensions becomes linked to the rights to protest and freedom of expression.
Small Protests and Moments of Social Upheaval
Iran’s experience over the past decade shows that large-scale protests rarely emerge in a vacuum. Before public anger erupts across dozens or hundreds of cities, society often passes through a period of smaller demonstrations, strikes, and scattered protests. These protests may appear to focus on different issues: wages, water shortages, electricity, unemployment, compulsory hijab, corruption, the collapse of financial institutions, the arrest of an activist, or the death of a citizen in custody.
Yet the repetition of these scattered protests creates a shared experience. Different segments of society come to realize that, despite their different grievances, they share common underlying causes: poor governance, systemic corruption, lack of accountability, and the suppression of the right to protest.
In the months leading up to the January 2018 nationwide protests, demonstrations by victims of failed financial institutions were among the clearest signs of economic discontent. Those gatherings were not the sole cause of the uprising, but they helped create an environment in which limited economic demands quickly evolved into broader protests against the political system.
Before the nationwide protests of 2022, Iran had already witnessed successive waves of demonstrations by workers, teachers, retirees, farmers, women, and families seeking justice. The killing of Mahsa Jina Amini was the decisive trigger, but public anger was not born that day. Her death connected years of accumulated humiliation, violence, discrimination, and unanswered protests.
The same pattern can also be seen in the January 2026 protests. Before the unrest spread, signs of public dissatisfaction were already visible in strikes, labor demonstrations, and protests over inflation and economic conditions. In all three cases, a specific event or demand grew into a broader protest only after society had already experienced sustained grievances, demonstrations, and repression.
Social movements cannot be predicted with precision, and every major wave of protest requires a combination of conditions, a triggering event, and the ability to connect different social groups. But smaller protests can provide the invisible foundation for such moments by reducing fear, creating a shared language, building experience with public demonstrations, and expanding solidarity.
These movements may not, by themselves, lead to nationwide protests, but they can play the same role that smaller demonstrations played in earlier periods: preserving the memory of protest and keeping networks prepared to connect when an unpredictable moment arrives.
The Broad Geography of a Shared Demand
One of the defining features of the retirees’ movement is that it is not confined to Tehran. The continued presence of retirees in Ahvaz, Shush, Kermanshah, Rasht, and many other cities shows that the crises of livelihoods and healthcare are nationwide.
At first glance, the Sunday protests may appear to be small and scattered gatherings, but the history of protests in Iran has repeatedly shown that major waves of unrest are often built from the convergence of such local circles.
No one can say with certainty when or how the retirees’ Sunday protests or the “No to Executions Tuesdays” campaign will connect to broader social movements. But it can be said that these movements prevent both the streets and the prisons from becoming places of absolute silence.
