{"id":608661,"date":"2026-09-07T14:04:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T14:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/608661\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T14:04:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T14:04:10","slug":"small-scale-protests-hit-iranian-cities-as-economic-crisis-deepens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/608661\/","title":{"rendered":"Small-scale protests hit Iranian cities as economic crisis deepens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Small-scale protests were held by retired telecommunications workers, retired teachers and job seekers in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/middle-east\/iran-news\/article-907791\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tehran<\/a> and several other Iranian cities as the country continues to face a worsening economic crisis, according to footage published by the Human Rights Activists News Agency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">In Isfahan and Sanandaj on Sunday, retirees reportedly gathered to demand action on the cost of living crisis and pension payments that reflect the cost of living, as required under Article 96 of Iran\u2019s Social Security Law. Many also called for the implementation of Article 111 of the law, which requires pension and disability payments to remain at or above the legal minimum wage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Iran\u2019s statutory base minimum wage is around 16.6 million tomans (currently equivalent to $1.66 USD, according to Coinbase) a month before benefits, according to Iranian media.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Retired educators, telecommunications workers and job seekers also reportedly demonstrated on Sunday in Tehran, Ahvaz, Shush, Kermanshah, Dezful and Rasht.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, a group of retirees also reportedly protested in Kermanshah province, demanding action on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/middle-east\/iran-news\/article-907272\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">cost of living crisis<\/a> and subsidized medical treatment under Iran\u2019s supplementary insurance policies.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"People take part in a protest ahead of an expected signing of an agreement to end the U.S.-Iran conflict, according to U.S. and Pakistani leaders, in Tehran, Iran, in this still image obtained from a social media video released on June 13, 2026.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"822\" height=\"829\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/images.jpost.com\/image\/upload\/f_auto,fl_lossy\/c_fill,g_faces:center,h_537,w_822\/725587\"\/>People take part in a protest ahead of an expected signing of an agreement to end the U.S.-Iran conflict, according to U.S. and Pakistani leaders, in Tehran, Iran, in this still image obtained from a social media video released on June 13, 2026. (credit: Social Media\/via REUTERS)Many Iranians forgoing critical treatments as costs rise<\/p>\n<p>The protests come after DW Persian reported that many people in Iran, including cancer patients, were forgoing or delaying critical treatment as healthcare costs become increasingly unaffordable. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/middle-east\/iran-news\/article-907356\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">IRGC<\/a>-affiliated Tasnim News Agency also reported that the prices of some medications had risen by 120%, while DW reported that some medications had increased in price by as much as 543%.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">The cost of a monthly prescription of four NovoRapid insulin pens, for example, has risen from about 280,000 tomans after insurance reimbursement to roughly 1.1 million tomans, DW reported, citing Iranian physicians.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Though there were no reports of violent suppression at these protests, last week Iran\u2019s security forces opened fire on and beat demonstrators outside the Dabal Khazaei Sugarcane Agro-Industry Company and outside the Lishtar refinery project, according to footage shared by both HRANA and the Karun Human Rights Organization.<\/p>\n<p>Iran&#8217;s economy continues to struggle with blackouts, water crisis, war<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph-section article-body-paragraph\">Iran\u2019s economy was already struggling under years of financial mismanagement and sanctions, while the regime\u2019s internet blackout and water crisis, as well as the war with the United States and Israel and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, have further worsened the crisis.<\/p>\n<p>Beni Sabti, an expert on Iran at Tel Aviv\u2019s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), told The Jerusalem Post last week that it was possible that there would be a return to protests at the size and scale of the violently suppressed January demonstrations, especially given that the \u201cIranian people don\u2019t have many options to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Human rights groups say that upward of 30,000 demonstrators were killed by the regime\u2019s security forces in January, while Iranian authorities have continued to execute people accused of being involved in the protests, using vague charges like moharebeh (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jpost.com\/middle-east\/iran-news\/article-907037\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">waging war against God<\/a>).\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Small-scale protests were held by retired telecommunications workers, retired teachers and job seekers in Tehran and several other&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":608662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[184,42,87,91,109283,53065,43,52,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-608661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-economy","tag-headlines","tag-iran","tag-iran-israel-war","tag-iranian-economy","tag-irgc","tag-news","tag-protests","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/608662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}