Repression intensifies in Iran, on the tenth day of a protest movement born of hyperinflation. Hundreds of protesters, including many minors, have been arrested or injured, while the mobilization continues throughout the country and is radicalized in the face of the Security Forces of the Government of the Ayatollahs.

First modification: 01/06/2026 - 22:57

Kimia Hadadian 17 years old, Kourosh Kheiri; 13 years old, Amirhossein Karimpour; 16 years...

Nazila Maroufian's Instagram page shows portraits of young Iranian protesters who were reportedly detained by security forces in Iran.

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"This girl was shot and apparently detained during the demonstrations in Naziabad, around 8:00 p.m. on January 4, 2026," the journalist writes about another missing girl: 14-year-old Sogand Mansouri.

"He was wearing a gray jacket and, at the moment, there is no information available about his condition or place of detention. (...) If anyone has news, please let us know."

Refugee in France since 2023, this 25-year-old journalist was arrested in 2022 during the previous major protest movement in Iran after the death of Mahsa Amini, in particular for having interviewed the father of the murdered young Iranian woman, after being interrogated by the moral police for wearing her veil incorrectly.

In contact with the protesters in Iran, Nazila Maroufian has become, from Paris, the spokesperson for this new wave of protests, in the face of which the Security Forces of the Government of the Ayatollahs have intensified their operations.

This social movement, which emerged with the strike of large merchants in Tehran and other large cities against hyperinflation and the deterioration of their economic situation, which began on December 28, has taken a political turn with slogans that now demand the fall of the Islamic Republic.

The protests have since spread to universities and many young Iranians go out to demonstrate every day.

The Iranian teachers' union also reports the violent arrest of several high school students across the country, whose families still have no news of them.

The Iran Human Rights organization (IHRNGO), based in Norway, has expressed in a statement its concern about the fate of the detained young protesters, particularly the minors who, according to the NGO, are in the central prison of Isfahan, where more than 150 people have been transferred.

Several detainees were injured and taken to the prison infirmary. Among them are three teenagers, Soroush Azarmehr (16 years old), Payam Aminzadeh (17 years old) and Saman Shahamat (16 years old), detained with injuries to their heads and backs.

In the prison of Qom, a conservative city, the birthplace of theological universities, located south of Tehran, a 17-year-old teenager, Soroush Javidi, lost consciousness after suffering a significant hemorrhage.

"It is unknown whether he received adequate medical care after being admitted to the prison infirmary," warns the NGO. "On January 3, a hundred detainees were transferred to the central prison in Qom, where they were crammed into a single room."

Shooting at protesters with AK-47 rifles

According to a count by the American NGO Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) published on January 4, some 990 people have been detained since the start of the movement on December 28.

At least 12 people, including members of the Security Forces, have died, according to official announcements.

The figure is much higher, according to Iran Human Rights, which has recorded at least 19 protesters killed by gunshots or other acts of violence carried out by government troops.

According to this NGO, on January 3, AK-47 rifles and probably DShK machine guns were used to repress residents who took to the streets in Malekshahi county, a region with a strong Kurdish population. Hundreds of people were also injured and detained across Iran, IHRNGO reports.

The movement hardens and persists

The protests in Iran affect or have affected, to a greater or lesser extent, at least 45 cities, mostly small and medium-sized and located mainly in the west of the country, according to an AFP count based on official announcements and media.

At least 25 of the 31 provinces that make up Iran are now affected.

"On each occasion, between several dozen and several hundred people demonstrate. But the movement is gaining strength, spreading and becoming more and more radical," says France 24 correspondent Siavosh Ghazi.

In a video that has gone viral, in Hamedan, western Iran, protesters, including several women, attack a pro-government militiaman who has just shot them on January 4. Several of them pounce on the man dressed in military uniform and disarm him. Some beat him, while others try to prevent him from being lynched.

Other images shared on social media show similar scenes, in which protesters are no longer afraid to confront law enforcement officers, throwing stones at riot police or gasoline at a militiaman before setting his motorcycle on fire.

Sometimes they kneel in peaceful protest in front of the security forces' motorcycles, without fear of being arrested.

"They must be put in their place"

There will be "no leniency" towards "the rioters," Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejeï, head of the judiciary, responded on Monday, January 5, while recognizing the legitimate right to demonstrate for economic demands.

On Saturday, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who had remained silent at the beginning of the demonstrations, spoke on the occasion of a Shiite holiday.

Before the faithful gathered in Tehran, he declared that the economic demands of the protesters were "just", but that the "troublemakers" must be "put in their place."

"The supreme leader of the Islamic Republic has implicitly given the order to repress protesters, calling them 'troublemakers' and 'agents of the enemy,'" Iran Human Rights says. The organization sees this as a sign from the so-called 'Supreme Leader' for an escalation of violence.

This article was translated from its original in French

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