There were 358 recorded protests across Iran in September, according to Iranian Resistance, which is an average of 12 protests a day.
The protests, which took place in 87 cities, show an 8% increase in the number of protests compared with the 331 that took place in August.
Most of the September protests were over economic grievances, featuring workers and pensioners demanding their missed payments, with some holding protests for several consecutive days and some traveling to Tehran to take their protest to the parliament.
September protest breakdown:
- Workers: 217 protests in 58 cities
- Pensioners: 26 protests in 18 cities
- Teachers: 14 protests in three cities
- Students: 11 protests in seven cities
- Farmers: six protests in four cities
- Prisoners: six protests and five hunger strikes in five cities
- Defrauded creditors: four protests in three cities
- Truck drivers: one protest
- Other sectors: 78 protests in 37 cities
Even regime officials and state-run media are beginning to acknowledge that major protests are imminent, with Head of the Security and Law Enforcement Department Hossein Zolfaghar saying that calls for protests have increased three-fold in the past year and the state-run daily Ebtekar saying that the public doesn’t trust the regime.
The paper wrote: “It seems that for various reasons, Hassan Rouhani is distancing himself from the people and society. But he and his advisors do not mention that this could be the end of people’s trust toward the state. They do not realize what consequences this behavior could have… The president’s advisors who are well-experienced intelligence men” should take note of “what has happened since November 2019 until today.”
Iran’s 2020 Budget, in Support of Suppression and Corruption
This was at the beginning of the month. By late September, the state-run media were warning that the people’s widespread mistrust of the mullahs would lead to nationwide protests because the regime was ignoring their demands.
Iranian political strategist Saeed Hajjarian even admitted that the people had a right not to trust the mullahs, pointing out that hatred of the clerics was a unifying factor for most Iranians. While regime-affiliated university professor Bijan Abdolkarimi said that the divide between the people and the mullahs was being exacerbated by officials who refuse to pay attention to public demands and that this would lead to regime overthrow.
He said: “We will definitely see more of [the November 2019 style] protests… I think the political power in the country has not been able to meet the people’s demands.”
