Protests in Iran: Story of the Last Week
Over the past week, Iran has seen a new wave of protests. It all started economically on December 28, 2025, in Tehran, Iran’s capital, when local merchants protested after another sharp drop of the Iranian currency (the rial). This time, however, it reached its lowest value in history: inflation has risen to 40%. Iran’s worsening economic situation is due to both corruption and sanctions imposed on Iran over its nuclear program. Students soon joined, and the demonstrations turned political, with slogans targeting Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. While Iran has a president, his role is purely ceremonial. The real power lies with the Supreme Leader – a position created after the 1979 revolution, when Iran became an Islamic state. Only two men have held this lifelong role: Ruhollah Khomeini and the current leader, Ali Khamenei, who has ruled for 36 years and is now facing protests The protests in Iran are the largest protests since 2022, with over 550 people killed and 20,000 detained after the death of Mahsa Amini. But let’s start from the beginning… How did Iran get here? Although Russia and Britain always tried to get Iran under their influence, Iran maintained its independence for a long time. Until World War II, when it sided with Germany. Fearing this alliance, Britain and the USSR invaded, removed the Shah, and installed his son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Unlike his father, the new Shah was not afraid to open the country to foreign – mainly Western – influences. But the Iranian people were a bit more skeptical of his open foreign policy. In 1951, they democratically elected Mohammad Mossadegh as prime minister. Mossadegh nationalized Iran’s oil industry, controlled by the British at that time. This upset the British, so they convinced the US that Mossadegh’s rule would inevitably lead to a communist coup and that Iran would side with the Soviet Union in the Cold War. In 1953, the American and British secret services orchestrated a coup, overthrowing Mossadegh. Initially, Mohammad Reza was against it, but he quickly realized that with such an attitude, the British and Americans wouldn’t let him stay in power for long, so eventually, he joined the coup. Because of that, the Iranians started to consider him a coward. To prove to them (and to himself) that he was not, he began to implement various socio-economic reforms. His goal? To turn Iran into a modern, Western-style superpower. He redistributed land from large landowners to small farmers, built dams and power plants, fighted illiteracy, and gave women the right to vote… And, to REALLY show that he was no coward, he became more autocratic. He even established a secret police, SAVAK, that brutally suppressed any opposition to him. Mohammad Reza’s style of government inevitably led to increased US influence in Iran – at least economically. Concerning security, the Americans were not so eager to guarantee military help to Iran in case of an attack by the USSR. But if the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad will go to the mountain. In this case, Mohammad Reza began negotiations with the Soviet Union about a non-aggression pact. Of course, the American president didn’t like that, so he convinced Mohammad to back down from these negotiations – which in turn angered the Soviet Union, who began supporting Mohammad Reza’s opponents. Iran Islamic revolution in 1979 And he had quite a few opponents: Ruhollah Khomeini, a Shia cleric, became the loudest critic of Mohammad Reza’s rule – not only in religious circles – he managed to appeal to a wide spectrum of dissatisfied people. What’s the difference between Shia and Sunni Islam? Simply put, the two groups differ over who they recognize as Muhammad’s rightful successor. Shia Muslims (the majority in Iran) believe leadership should be hereditary, passing to Muhammad’s descendants. Sunni Muslims (the majority globally) argue that the leader should be elected. The Revolution Anti-government protests began in October 1977 and gradually intensified, escalating in the spring of 1979, when Mohammad Reza fled into exile and Khomeini took over the government. Shortly after, he held a referendum on whether Iran “should become an Islamic Republic or not”. According to official results, 99% of people voted “yes,” and the turnout was 99%. Mohammad Reza was indeed unpopular, but the fact that the elections were held publicly and that the ballots were color-coded (green for yes, red for no) certainly played some role in this result. At the same time, the question “Islamic Republic: yes or no” is quite vague. Even today, in the age of the internet, it’s hard to understand what you’re signing up for – let alone in the 70s as someone living in extreme poverty… Many, focused on survival, didn’t grasp the implications until later – when it was too late. Life Under Sharia Law Since the revolution, Iran’s legal and political system has been strictly based on so-called Sharia law. Sharia law is not some uniformly codified law written in black and white somewhere. It’s more like different interpretations of how people should live according to the Quran (in the case of Iran, this interpretation is led by the Supreme Leader). This is a deeply problematic system because everyone can interpret the Quran basically however they want, since Islam does not have any central authority, like the Pope, to which they would be accountable. Iran is living proof of that. What exactly does living in accordance with the Quran mean according to its Supreme Leaders? For example: Sanctions on Iran Frankly, it’s primarily women who are negatively affected. But they are not the only ones with a reason to protest: Since the revolution, Iran has been regularly subject to sanctions – mainly from the United Nations, US, UK, and EU, primarily because of its nuclear program (on which Iran cooperates with China and Russia). Sanctions have led to an increasingly deteriorating economic situation, affecting everyone. There have been several big protests in Iran’s history: Unfortunately for Iranians, each wave of protest has been met
One day I was a refugee with no country to return to, the next day I was a Syrian in France : AnnaTalks with OMAR
When the refugee crisis began in 2015, I was 14 years old. Back then, I wasn’t yet interested in politics – all my opinions in that regard were adopted from the “trusted adults” in my life (a.k.a. my parents and teachers). I vividly remember the moment when I was cooking in the kitchen, and listening to my dad’s warnings about those “dangerous migrants coming to Europe on boats”. Perhaps at the same moment, a few hundred kilometers away, Omar’s boat was approaching the Greek border… I met Omar in 2023, when we both worked at Radio WNE and when Syria was still under the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. When he told me the story of his arrival in Europe, the story you’re about to read, I was shocked – it sounded like an action movie. And yet it is the reality – and quite often the only way for tens of thousands of people to preserve their morals and escape prison or even death. My dad’s words came to mind again: Would he change his opinion about refugees if he heard Omar’s story? Would others change theirs as well? The thing is that while alarmist stories about refugees frighten us on a daily basis, the testimonies from the actual refugees are not as common. This is often due to the language barrier – for example, Omar doesn’t speak English – but also to the fact that people simply tend to stay in their national communities – even though there are many foreigners in France, I know from my own experience that the French and the foreign communities rarely meet in real life… But that’s exactly why podcast AnnaTalks exists and why, in March 2025 I interviewed Omar for it. And because the interview is in French and I don’t want to deprive those of you who don’t understand it, you can find an English translation below. Enjoy reading! What happened in Syria? To begin, could you describe what it was like growing up in Syria for you ? I grew up like most Syrians who were born in Syria, I went to school there and stayed until 2013, when I was about 17 or 18 years old. I lived in a town called Douma, around 15 km from Damascus. We were ordinary people living in their city. How would you describe Syrians as a nation? Is there some trait that all Syrians have in common? My view of Syria is that we actually didn’t know each other before the revolution. In Syria there are around 20 different ethnic and national groups, so there is not a single national identity shared by everyone. I think most Syrians feel like some second-class citizens because we don’t really have this concept of “citizenship” – you never hear it in Syria. But the one thing we did all share was the fear of the secret intelligence services and the feeling that this country does not belong to us. I think the dictatorship we lived under is the only thing that the 24 millions of Syrians share. Could you explain what happened in Syria? Give some context about Assad’s regime and about what happened in 2011? I’ll be very simple: In 1970, Hafez al-Assad, the former Syrian president and the father of Bashar al-Assad, took power through a coup and he ruled for 30 years. When he died in 2000, the Syrian parliament modified the constitution so his son Bashar could take over – just to keep power in the hands of the family. Bashar al-Assad promised us to make political and economic reforms. And he partially did – things got a bit better in the economy. But the political violence in Syria was the same as during his father’s time. In 2011, after the Arab Spring revolutions started first in Tunisia, then in Egypt, it arrived in Syria. In March 2011, a group of boys, between 13 and 15 years old, wrote on the walls of the city of Daraa in the south of Syria “It’s your turn now, Doctor”. “Doctor” referring to Bashar al-Assad, because he used to be an ophthalmologist. That’s when the revolution really started. At first, it was not a military revolution, just peaceful demonstrations, demands for political freedom, freedom of expression. City after city joined. Until we arrived at a moment when the whole of Syria was demonstrating. I was 15 at that time and I joined the demonstrations in my city Douma. And I saw the Syrian army shoot at peaceful people with my own eyes. We weren’t even calling for the fall of the regime at first, nor for the condemnation of Assad – we were too afraid to do that. But the regime escalated the violence. By the end of 2011, they were bombing entire cities. In 2013, they committed the first chemical attack. It was in my city. It was 21 August 2013. At that moment we understood that even if we did not participate in demonstrations or in military actions, we would be killed. Since, we had lost our house, and my parents had lost their jobs, we couldn’t leave so easily. We had to sell our car, and take a bus to the north of Syria, to the Turkish border. We spent 11 or 12 hours on the bus. On that journey, for the first time, I saw Daesh and all the armed groups active in Syria at the time. Can you explain what Daesh is for those who don’t know? Daesh is a jihadist military group that wants to apply Sharia to the entire world. For them, democracy, the concept of citizenship – it doesn’t exist, that’s for the West, for Christians, for people who don’t resemble them. They try to apply the Quran to the people no matter where they are. Daesh is an international group. They are not Syrians, they are not Iraqis, they are not Tunisians. Members of Daesh come from all over the world : France, Belgium, Europe…