Several people were reportedly killed during unrest in Iran on Thursday, an Iranian news agency and a rights group reported, as the biggest protests to hit the country for three years over soaring inflation sparked violence in several provinces.<\/p>\n
The semi-official Fars news agency cited a \u201csource with knowledge\u201d as saying several people were killed in clashes on Thursday morning between police and what it said were armed protesters in Lordegan in western Iran.<\/p>\n
The rights group, Hengaw, also reported deaths in Lordegan.<\/p>\n
Violence reported in several cities
\nThursday\u2019s clashes in Lordegan, along with reported deaths of a security services member overnight and another protester on Wednesday, mark an escalation in the unrest since shopkeepers began protesting on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The Revolutionary Guards said on Thursday morning a member of its affiliated Basij volunteer paramilitary unit had been killed in the western city of Kuhdasht, naming him as Amirhossam Khodayari Fard. Thirteen other militiamen were wounded, it added.<\/p>\n
Hengaw reported that a protester was also killed on Wednesday in Isfahan province in central Iran.<\/p>\n
Reuters could not immediately verify any of those reports.<\/p>\n
Tehran has responded to the unrest with an offer of dialogue, an apparently conciliatory gesture alongside its security response.<\/p>\n
Government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said on Thursday that the authorities would hold a direct dialogue with representatives of trades unions and merchants, but without giving details.<\/p>\n
Merchants, shop owners and students in a number of Iranian universities have been demonstrating for days and closing major bazaars. The government shut down much of the country on Wednesday by declaring a holiday due to cold weather.<\/p>\n
However, President Masoud Pezeshkian has said he had asked the interior minister to listen to \u201clegitimate demands\u201d of the demonstrators.<\/p>\n
Iran\u2019s economy has been struggling for years as a result of US and Western sanctions over Tehran\u2019s nuclear program. Regional tensions led to a 12-day air war with Israel in June, further straining the country\u2019s finances.<\/p>\n
The Iranian rial lost around half its value against the dollar in 2025, with inflation reaching 42.5% in December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Several people were reportedly killed during unrest in Iran on Thursday, an Iranian news agency and a rights group reported, as the biggest protests to hit the country for three years over soaring inflation sparked violence in several provinces. The semi-official Fars news agency cited a \u201csource with knowledge\u201d as saying several people were killed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14799,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14798"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14798\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14800,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14798\/revisions\/14800"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}