Iran activist mother urges strikes, calls on security forces to 'stand with people'

Iran’s parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on Tuesday that Iranians would prevent protests over economic hardship from being diverted into unrest, while calling on officials to respond to public anger over living costs as demonstrations continued for a third day.

Speaking in an open session of parliament, Ghalibaf said people’s grievances over livelihoods required “full responsibility” from officials and dialogue with representatives of professional guilds.

He accused unnamed opponents of seeking to turn demands into violence. “Ill-wishers want to drag people’s demands into disorder and unrest,” Ghalibaf said, adding that “the people of Iran know the enemy and its malicious goals.”

He said measures should focus on boosting purchasing power, reforming economic decision-making and ensuring coordinated action across the government.

Ghalibaf also praised what he called timely involvement by President Masoud Pezeshkian, and said urgent steps were needed to protect household incomes and strengthen the central bank’s authority in economic policy.

• What officials mean by 'unrest'

• Iranian officials routinely draw a distinction between what they call “legitimate protests” over economic or social issues and “unrest” or “riots,” a term they often use to describe demonstrations they link to foreign-backed groups or organized networks. The framing is frequently used during periods of nationwide protests to justify security measures.

The US State Department on Monday posted a video of students at the University of Tehran chanting at night while surrounded by intelligence motorcycles, saying the students are shouting for freedom.

“Students at the University of Tehran are showing extraordinary courage, and even while security forces have besieged their dormitories, they are shouting for freedom and dignity,” the State Department’s Persian account on X said.

“Their slogans echo the determination of a generation that will not be silent, a generation that is the future of Iran,” the post added.

In the video, one speaker can be heard saying: “We all tell each other and promise each other that we expect nothing from any of the students who spoke. Take care of yourselves, know that there is such a risk, stay calm, and stand firm for freedom and for the ideals of the university."

“Do not be afraid, do not be afraid, we are all together. Students may die, but they will not accept humiliation,” the students’ chant.

Gila Gamliel, Israel’s minister of innovation, science and technology, posted a selfie on X on Monday wearing a “Make Iran Great Again” cap, tagging Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah, with the caption “Soon.”

Gamliel told Iran International in September that Israel supports exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi as Iranians “trust and back him,” in the first explicit endorsement by an Israeli cabinet member of the exiled prince’s push for regime change.

US Ambassador to the UN Michael Waltz voiced support for protesters in Iran on Monday, saying people there want freedom and that “we stand with them."

“The people of Iran want freedom. They have suffered at the hands of the ayatollahs for too long,” Waltz wrote on X.

​“We stand with Iranians in the streets of Tehran and across the country as they protest a radical regime that has brought them nothing but economic downturn and war,” he added.

An Iranian human rights lawyer has shared a text message sent by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Intelligence as evidence of state control, responding with a defense of the right to protest.

“When there is no longer any way left for democratic change, when in less than a year the value of people's money is halved and people are at risk of becoming homeless, when in summer and winter we have neither electricity nor gas nor water nor clean air, then protests against the country's politics, economy and management are the nation’s right,” Amir Raeisian wrote on X on Monday.

Raeisian posted a surveillance warning from the IRGC, although it is not clear whether he received the message himself or whether it was forwarded to him by one of the protesters, as he does not clarify who the original recipient was.

“Your presence in connection with the illegal gatherings on December 29 has come under intelligence monitoring, so it is advised that you strictly refrain from taking part yourself, and from the participation of your relatives, in such illegal gatherings, which serve the enemy’s aims,” the IRGC Intelligence text read.

“These are not illegal gatherings,” Raeisian said.