Iran International
Tehran may have crushed street unrest with brute force, but it has no comparable solution for an economy gripped by surging inflation and collapsing incomes.
The protests initially erupted over a sharp spike in exchange rates but soon escalated into open calls for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.
Many Iranians now say they personally know at least one or two people killed on January 8 or 9. Arrests and enforced disappearances—whose exact scale remains unknown—have also drawn countless families into the crisis, deepening fear and uncertainty.
According to people who have recently left Iran or managed to communicate via Starlink, businesses across the country are either closed or operating at minimal capacity, battered by currency turmoil and the prolonged internet shutdown.
On one side, customers have disappeared; on the other, sellers are reluctant to part with their goods.
Merchants say they cannot be sure they will be able to replace inventory amid exchange-rate volatility, turning even routine transactions into a gamble. Many now prefer not to sell at all.
Even before the unrest, businesses were under intense pressure.
Data published by the economic website Eco Iran show that bank lending from April to December rose 47 percent year-on-year. But 82 percent of loans to the productive sector went toward “working capital”—a sign that firms were borrowing not to expand, but simply to survive.
Shrinking purchasing power
Soon after the protests began, the government announced a plan to offset declining purchasing power following the removal of subsidized exchange rates for essential imports.
Under the plan, low- and middle-income individuals are to receive 10 million rials per month—about $7.50, roughly equivalent to one day’s wage for a construction worker.
Four months of payments were deposited at once, with recipients told they could spend one-quarter of the sum each month on 11 basic items, including rice, cooking oil, protein products, and dairy, at state-set prices in designated stores.
Prices for most of those goods in the open market have continued to surge, and some items have become scarce. Most readers responding to a poll by the news website Khabar Online said the subsidy was insufficient or ineffective.
One reader commented on the website that the handout offsets at most half the price increase for the 11 subsidized items, noting that rising food costs would also push up prices for everything from biscuits to restaurant meals, for which no compensation exists.
Many also fear the government will finance the program by printing money, further accelerating inflation, which official figures show had already surpassed 50 percent by December.
Cost of blackout
The nationwide internet shutdown, imposed on January 8 and still in place, has crippled hundreds of thousands of small and home-based businesses.
From home food producers to online language and music teachers, entire livelihoods have vanished overnight, with authorities offering no clear timeline for restoring connectivity.
These businesses relied almost entirely on online platforms for advertising and sales. Many were small producers in cities and even remote villages, selling handicrafts, agricultural goods, or homemade food directly to customers through Instagram.
Even before the shutdown, widespread filtering had forced them to pay for VPNs, further straining already fragile operations.
Kourosh, the manager of an advertising company who left Iran for Turkey after the January 8–9 killings, said all advertising activity had come to a halt.
“My clients have lost any hope of selling their products before the Iranian New Year, which is just two months away,” he told Iran International.
“People have no money, and even if they do, they won’t spend it on clothes, shoes, or home goods. Everyone was counting on sales in these final weeks of the year.”
Tehran’s unveiling of a towering statue depicting the Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling before pre-Islamic Persian King Shapur I has renewed criticism of the Islamic Republic’s appeal to nationalist sentiment following the June war with Israel.
For over forty years, the theocracy purged ancient Persian history from schoolbooks, replacing it with post-Islamic narratives. But after the 12-day conflict with Israel, officials have turned to the distant pre-Islamic past to rally a divided society.
From murals of ancient kings and soldiers to patriotic songs added to Shi’ite mourning ceremonies performed before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran now embraces imagery once deemed heretical by its own revolutionary ethos.
'Kneel before Iran' campaign
Tehran’s Revolution (Enghelab) Square was the scene of an unusual spectacle on Friday as officials unveiled a massive bronze statue depicting Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling in submission before Sassanid King Shapur I, commemorating Iran’s victory at the Battle of Edessa (260 AD).
The event was held under the slogan “Kneel before Iran,” part of what authorities describe as a campaign to project “national unity and historical pride” following the June war with Israel.
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, a staunch ultraconservative, said on X: “Enmity with Great Iran can only end in kneeling before this historic nation.”
Municipal official Davood Goodarzi said the installation would be accompanied by visual displays depicting “other victories of Iranians over foreign aggressors,” including the defeat of British forces by local commander Rais-Ali Delvari, Mirza Kuchak Khan’s resistance against Russian troops, and Surena’s triumph over Rome at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE.
The goal, Goodarzi said, is “strengthening concepts such as national dignity, social unity, and Iranian identity.”
The statue, he said, would remain temporarily at Revolution Square before being moved to a city gateway “where it will stand as the first emblem of Iran before diplomats and foreign visitors.”
Unveiled women were allowed to attend the unveiling ceremony—an uncommon scene at events organized by Tehran’s ultra-hardline municipality.
The turn to the pre-Islamic past
The sharp reversal also recalls remarks once made by Khamenei. In a 2011 speech, he asserted that “all the great military victories of this nation came after Islam,” dismissing pre-Islamic accounts as “things that are not documented.”
In 1987, he had said that prophets triumphed over kings such as Cyrus and that “nothing remains of these monarchs in history but names remembered with derision.”
Nevertheless, pro-government social media accounts have now gone so far as to circulate posters equating Khamenei himself with Shapur, showing him standing with a staff as Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump kneel before him. The caption reads: “You will kneel before Iran.”
'Hypocrisy'
Pro-government figures have hailed the move as a patriotic success. Conservative political reporter Hossein Saremi posted: “Today’s grand Iranian gathering showed that people and the state share one essence: Iran itself. Nothing can take our homeland away.”
Others, however, called the spectacle “hypocrisy.” Journalist Gholamhossein Pashaei wrote on X: “Every year you close Pasargadae to stop people from celebrating Cyrus Day, yet you unveil Shapur’s statue in Enghelab Square with drums and fireworks during Fatimiyya (mourning period)!”
Dissident commentator Hamid Asafi called the ceremony “a perfect snapshot of the Islamic Republic’s contradictions.”
On Telegram he wrote: “A week ago they closed Cyrus’s tomb out of fear of the crowds, and now they glorify Shapur in the same breath. The Islamic Republic fears living history but poses for selfies with its corpse.”
He added: “They know people no longer respond to rosaries and sermons. That’s why they’ve brought history back to the stage—in a controlled costume. If they can’t erase the past, they’ll try to own it.”
The irony deepened as UNESCO formally recognized Cyrus’s Charter as one of the earliest human-rights documents.
President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X: “Iran, the cradle of dialogue, justice, and coexistence, can still inspire peace today.”
Users swiftly replied, questioning how such pride could coexist with a government that blocks access to Cyrus’s tomb each year to those wishing to visit it on his birthday.