Iran parliament halts impeachment moves against ministers amid unrest

In a statement read aloud in Iran’s parliament, lawmakers said Khamenei would “make Trump and his allies taste humiliation.”

Addressing Trump directly, the statement said Iran’s leader would “drown you in the sea of the anger of believers and the oppressed of the world, to serve as a lesson for the world of arrogance.”

Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf later described Trump as “disrespectful” following a closed-door session of lawmakers, saying Khamenei had set the country’s course without fear of the US president.

“Khamenei has spent his life confronting corrupt arrogant powers such as Trump,” Ghalibaf said.

He also described the ongoing protests in Iran as an American-Israeli plot, adding that the United States had once again failed and that Trump was “desperate” and showing contradictory behavior.

He said actions taken by the United States against Iran over the past two weeks would constitute “clear crimes” in any fair international court, comparing recent developments to the pager operation in Lebanon. In September 2024, thousands of electronic devices intended for use by Hezbollah members exploded simultaneously in two separate events across Lebanon and Syria.

Iranian officials have repeatedly accused the United States and Israel of fomenting unrest inside the country, allegations denied by Western governments.

Tensions between Tehran and Washington have risen sharply in recent weeks, as Iran faces widespread protests at home and renewed international pressure over its internal security crackdown.

The aim is not necessarily to convince skeptics, but to project an image of control and popular backing at a moment of visible strain.

After days of sustained demonstrations calling for the overthrow of the system, authorities organized counter-rallies in several cities on Monday, presenting them as popular condemnations of the protests themselves.

State television depicted the gatherings as mass denunciations of unrest, echoing official claims that the uprising was driven by “armed terrorists” and foreign adversaries.

A familiar mobilization

The mechanics of the rallies followed a script many Iranians recognize. State bodies drew participants to central locations in Tehran and other major cities, relying on administrative pressure and access to public resources.

Coverage was then amplified by state television and media outlets affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

In recent broadcasts, state outlets released a mix of ground-level footage and aerial images intended to convey scale. Some of the images show visible crowds, underscoring that the authorities retain a base of support.

It is difficult to determine precise numbers, the duration of the gatherings, or whether all images reflect live events from the same day. Similar visual techniques — including the reuse of footage or the circulation of undated aerial shots — have been employed during previous protest cycles.

Even taken at face value, the rallies appeared limited in duration and geographic spread.

By contrast, demonstrations opposing the government have persisted for weeks, erupting across hundreds of locations according to tallies compiled by activists and researchers, despite the risks involved.

The contrast is sharpened by the conditions under which each takes place: pro-government gatherings proceed under heavy security, while protesters have faced gunfire, mass arrests and lethal force.

Information control as context

This round of rallies unfolded amid unusually severe restrictions on communication. For several consecutive days, internet connectivity across much of Iran has been sharply curtailed, according to digital rights groups and user reports, leaving millions unable to communicate freely or share information.

State and Guards-linked outlets, by contrast, have continued to publish without interruption. Agencies such as Tasnim, Fars and Mehr have maintained full access, flooding television and online platforms with official narratives.

The result is a highly asymmetric information environment. While ordinary citizens struggle to document events or verify developments, state-aligned media dominate the public space with curated imagery.

Under such conditions, rallies are presented largely on the authorities’ terms, with limited independent means to corroborate scale, timing or participation.

A recurring sequence

Similar state-organized rallies followed major protest movements in 2009, 2019 and 2022, each time presented as demonstrations of enduring legitimacy. In each case, they coincided with intensified security measures and tighter controls on dissent.

Evidence of the human toll has continued to surface despite efforts to restrict documentation.

Videos circulating online in recent days, which could not be independently verified, appeared to show bodies in a morgue in Kahrizak, with grieving relatives gathered nearby—imagery that contrasted sharply with official broadcasts of unity and resolve.

In a message released Sunday night, Reza Pahlavi described the moment as a new phase in what he called a national uprising, urging supporters to challenge the state’s control over information and public space.

What the competing images ultimately underscore is a question that spectacle alone cannot answer: how Iranian cities would look if opposing sides were able to assemble under comparable conditions.

The return to this familiar choreography comes as protests continue despite severe limits on communication, widespread arrests and the high personal cost of participation.

The repeated staging of loyalty rallies suggests not confidence, but the absence of other tools for demonstrating consent. Carefully framed images may circulate for a time, but they cannot indefinitely substitute for credibility rooted in broad public trust.

In the end, theater may delay recognition of a crisis, but it does not resolve one.

Members of parliament have accused both the government and the public of contributing to the economic collapse that triggered the unrest.

President Massoud Pezeshkian and members of his administration, in turn, have pointed the finger back at parliament, underscoring a familiar pattern of elite infighting during periods of crisis.

Speaking at a meeting with officials and academics on Tuesday, January 6, Pezeshkian acknowledged that responsibility for the current situation was shared.

In a characteristically self-critical tone, he said his administration and the Majles both bore blame for the failures that had led to the unrest.

Elephant in the room

Notably absent from official statements has been any reckoning with the role of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei or the effects of decades of centralized rule.

In his only intervention on protest so far, Khamenei appeared to urge authorities to tighten the control.

“Protest is legitimate, but protest is different from rioting,” he said on Saturday. “We talk to protesters, but there is no use in talking to rioters. Rioters must be put in their place.”

Protesters have made Khamenei a central target, accusing him of bankrupting the country through military adventurism and the financing of regional proxy groups.

‘US mercenaries’

As demonstrations continued for an eleventh consecutive day on Wednesday, hardline lawmakers reiterated familiar rhetoric dismissing the protests as foreign-instigated.

Fatemeh Mohammadbeigi, a lawmaker from Qazvin, labeled protesters “rioters” and said they should be intimidated into ending what she called their “mutiny.”

“Enemies are importing weapons into Iran,” she asserted, calling on security forces to “confront the rioters with strict measures.”

Rights groups and activist networks say at least 36 protesters have been killed since the unrest began, with many more injured. A hospital in the uniquely restive province of Ilam was attacked to arrest wounded demonstrators.

MP Mohammadbeigi alleged in an interview with moderate outlet Rouydad24 that “Israeli and US mercenaries” were responsible for the hospital raid as well as for shutting down markets and damaging property.

Infighting unabated

Similar claims were echoed by Esmail Kowsari, a Tehran lawmaker, IRGC officer and member of parliament’s national security committee.

Speaking to the state-linked ILNA news agency, Kowsari accused “enemies” of attempting to sow discord in Iran, arguing that Israel and the United States, which he said had been “defeated in the war with Iran,” were now waging a “soft war” through social media.

Kowsari also criticized the government for “leaving the markets uncontrolled” and suggested parliament should summon the president to explain the situation.

Moderate figures have warned that such moves risk deepening the crisis.

Hassan Rassouli, a former governor of the protest hotbed Lorestan, warned that questioning Pezeshkian in parliament “would be tantamount to attacking the commander during a battle.”

In an interview with moderate outlet Khabar Online on Wednesday, he accused hardline lawmakers of staging “a show of authority” at a moment when Tehran—in his words—should focus on containing unrest, not escalating internal power struggles.

In 2009, many demonstrators chanted “Ya Hossein, Mir Hossein,” framing a disputed election in the language of religious legitimacy and around Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former prime minister who challenged the vote.

Sixteen years later, clips shared from protests and even holiday gatherings at historic sites suggest that a growing share of Iran’s street chant repertoire has shifted to a different refrain: “This is the last battle, Pahlavi will return.”

What unfolded in between is not only a story of anger, but of the shrinking space for incremental change and a widening search for alternatives.

How Iran moved from religiously-coded reformist slogans to open monarchist nostalgia matters for one reason above all: it suggests a growing segment of society no longer sees the Islamic Republic’s internal factions as a route to change.

Act 1: A political arena that emptied out

Official election statistics are contested, but they still illustrate a trend. Authorities said roughly 40 million of about 46 million eligible voters participated in 2009, around 85%.

By July 2024, officialdom reported about 24.5 million votes from roughly 61.5 million eligible voters, or around 40%.

That arithmetic captures a political migration. The eligible population rose by roughly 15.5 million, while the number of participants fell by roughly the same amount.

Whatever the true figures, the gap points to a public that increasingly signals disengagement through abstention – and, at times, through the street.

Act 2: two wings keeping the system airborne

In the mid-2000s, Iran’s political class was roughly divided into a left-right dichotomy. Around that time, a newer identity – “principlism” – took shape on the right.

Khamenei, in public remarks, cast the competing camps as two wings with which the country could fly, a formulation many critics interpret as meaning the system could manage dissent by channeling it into controlled competition. He also set out red lines which political discourse could not challenge: the constitution and the revolution’s principles.

After the 2009 protests, Khamenei went further, recalling that he had once told then-President Mohammad Khatami that if a “leftist current” did not exist, he would need to create one – so that the overall outcome of factional rivalry would remain “moderate.”

The subtext was hard to miss: the contest was permissible, even useful, so long as it protected the system.

Act 3: Mousavi – an internal feud packaged as salvation

Many Iranians voted for reformist president Mohammed Khatami in 1997 hoping for gradual reform. Eight years later, that hope had thinned. Officially, Khatami won with more than 20 million votes in 1997; by 2005, the combined votes for the three main reformist candidates were about 10 million.

In 2009, the system’s left wing returned with Mousavi, known as “Imam Khomeini’s prime minister” from the early post-revolution years. The title stemmed from Khomeini’s direct intervention to keep Mousavi in office during the 1980s, overruling then-president Ali Khamenei, who opposed his appointment.

For many young protesters, the title meant little. For the leadership, it carried older grudges. Mousavi’s return also carried a signal to Khamenei: an internal rivalry was being revived.

Mousavi, however, largely kept his challenge inside the Islamic Republic’s own vocabulary – careful not to turn an internal power struggle into a repudiation of the system.

During the campaign he expressed nostalgia for the 1980s – often remembered for repression and war – calling it the revolution’s “golden era.”

In his first statement after the disputed vote, he cast the crisis not as a failure of the Islamic Republic itself but as a betrayal by “untrustworthy custodians” who had weakened what he called “the sacred system,” and he described the protest movement as rooted in religious teachings and devotion to the prophet’s family.

That tension – between street anger and a leadership that still sought legitimacy within the system – was visible even then.

The death of a young female protestor, Neda Agha-Soltan in June 2009 was captured on video and blamed by activists on security forces, becoming a global symbol of the crackdown. But the movement’s most prominent political figure continued to welcome the return of religious slogans as proof of fidelity to the 1979 revolution.

Act 4: The purple interlude

In 2013, Hassan Rouhani entered with a promise to ease sanctions and improve livelihoods. Reformist figures backed him. The Obama administration reached the nuclear deal with Rouhani’s government, and the economy saw partial, temporary relief.

But the political bargain remained fragile. The government pursued subsidy reforms, and in 2016 Donald Trump’s election in the United States shifted the trajectory again. The sense that electoral choices could reliably improve daily life began to erode further.

Act 5: ‘Reformist, principlist – the game is over’

In January 2018, protests that began as economic anger produced a slogan that cut to the core of the “two wings” model: “Reformist, principlist – the game is over.” The chant did not merely condemn one faction; it rejected the system’s entire managed spectrum.

Alongside it came another first in modern protest cycles: open monarchist sentiment, including “Reza Shah, may your soul rest in peace.” He was the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty and served as Shah of Iran from 1925 to 1941.

Act 6: Nostalgia hardens and symbols return

Months later, in spring 2018, a mummified body was reportedly discovered during construction in Rey – near the site of Reza Shah’s former mausoleum, destroyed after the revolution. The episode fueled speculation and fascination, and it landed in a society already primed to argue about the Pahlavi legacy.

Act 7: Bloody November of 2019

The November 2019 fuel-price protests were met with a deadly crackdown that rights groups say killed hundreds. Reformist figures – who had often positioned themselves as aligned with protester grievances – were widely seen as cautious at best, critical at worst.

What stood out in the slogans was not only rejection of Khamenei and the Islamic Republic but a sharper turn toward affirmative alternatives: “Iran has no king, so there’s no accountability,” and “Crown Prince, where are you? Come to our aid.”

Act 8: Woman, Life, Freedom

After a young woman, Mahsa (Jina) Amini, died in morality police custody in 2022, protests erupted nationwide under the rallying cry “Woman, Life, Freedom.” The uprising also expanded the language of protest: chants in local mother tongues spread widely, and debates surfaced more openly among opposition currents.

One new wrinkle was the emergence of anti-monarchy chants – “Neither Shah nor clergy” – in apparent response to the growing visibility of pro-Pahlavi slogans. Other chants expanded the targets to include several left-leaning political currents at once.

Act 9: Nowruz 2025

By Nowruz 2025, videos showed crowds – especially younger people – gathering at historic sites associated with pre-Islamic and national heritage, chanting in support of the Pahlavi family. The geographic spread, from the northeast to Pasargadae, suggested the sentiment was not confined to one city or social niche.

Act 10: Late 2025 and early 2026

In late 2025, the suspicious death of human rights lawyer Khosrow Alikordi in Mashhad drew attention after recordings circulated suggesting he supported the Pahlavis.

At a memorial, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi attempted to speak but was met with pro-Pahlavi chants; supporters and critics disputed how representative the chanting crowd was.

Around the same time, the official account linked to Tractor S.C. in Tabriz urged fans to chant in Azeri Turkish against the Pahlavis at matches – an unusual institutional intervention in a politically charged argument.

Then, as Tehran protests began early in January, footage again showed prominent pro-Pahlavi and pro-monarchy slogans.

Chants were even reported at universities, traditionally a center of anti-monarchy politics, showing how far the protest soundscape has shifted.

Accuracy over arithmetic balance

In a race, fairness means everyone starts at the same line; it does not mean the referee forces the same finish. Applied to journalism, the principle is similar: reflect what is most widely heard and most central to the event, without “subsidizing” less prevalent slogans to manufacture balance.

Iran’s protests generate hundreds of chants. No report can list them all. The professional task is to identify what is both meaningfully connected to the protests and demonstrably widespread. Treating a marginal slogan as equal to a dominant one is not neutrality; it is editorial interference – especially in a media environment where a single influencer can rival a legacy newsroom’s reach.

If journalism is to remain relevant, it has to prioritize honest reflection over curated symmetry: equal opportunity for voices to be heard, not equal outcomes engineered on the page.

The episode has prompted comparisons—sometimes uneasy, sometimes fiercely rejected—between Venezuela’s trajectory and Iran’s own.

Strikes and protests have spread to dozens of Iranian cities in recent days, sharpening questions about economic exhaustion and public legitimacy.

Former Iranian diplomat Fereydoun Majlesi told the Shargh newspaper that Maduro’s detention reflected Washington’s current logic: maximal displays of power and deterrence. “Maduro’s arrest was not just a political act but a deterrent message to other players,” he said.

Foreign policy analyst Ali Bigdeli also told Shargh that while a direct U.S. attack on Iran would require congressional approval, the Venezuela episode showed that covert actions or security pretexts remained possible.

“Without a serious revision of foreign policy and adaptation to new global conditions, continuing the old path will not only fail but impose greater costs,” he warned.

‘Erosion of trust’

Even sources close to the establishment reflected unease, albeit more subtly.

Khabar Online, a moderate outlet close to security chief Ali Larijani, highlighted US sanctions on Venezuela while also pointing to mismanagement and corruption.

“Maduro’s fall was not the product of a single factor, but the outcome of accumulated crises long ignored,” the commentary argued, landing on a phrase widely used in reference to Iran’s own condition: “erosion of public trust.”

Political analyst Sadegh Maleki was more direct.

“Maduro, like (Syria’s) Assad, ruled without heartfelt popular backing,” he told Shargh. “Governments that create distance between themselves and the people are more vulnerable to external operations.”

‘Not comparable’

Conservative voices, however, moved quickly to dismiss any analogy. Gholamreza Sadeghian, editor-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guards-affiliated Javan daily, was blunt in his assessment. “Iran Is Not Comparable—Don’t Waste Your Time,” he headlined his Sunday editorial.

Washington’s threats, Sadeghian wrote, were not a sign of strength but part of a “repetitive and failed spectacle,” adding that “America neither has the capacity for final victory nor the ability to reshape the global order in its favor.”

Hardline newspapers denounced the US action as an “open kidnapping,” a “violation of the UN Charter,” and a “raid on Venezuela’s oil.”

Commentators argued that Washington’s aim was to gain leverage over global energy markets and consolidate geopolitical influence by controlling the country’s vast reserves.

The lesson, hardliners argued, was that Iran should never engage in talks with the United States, noting that Maduro was detained shortly after he signaled readiness to negotiate with Trump.

‘Military power not enough’

Kayhan newspaper, which is funded by the office of Iran’s Supreme Leader, claimed that Venezuelans had taken to the streets in support of Maduro and declared they would not allow their country to be occupied.

Ultraconservative lawmaker Javad Karimi-Ghodousi went further, predicting that Maduro would return to Venezuela “as a hero.” Trump, he added on X, would “be slapped by America’s revolutionary youth and fall into the dustbin of history.”

A more measured assessment came from the moderate outlet Rouydad24.

An editorial argued that the two countries’ situations were fundamentally different and rejected “fear of collapse,” while still suggesting that Maduro’s fate offered a lesson for Tehran on the need to address economic and social demands.

“Venezuela showed that even military structures cannot endure without sustainable social backing,” the site wrote.