Deadly clashes erupted again in Iran as protesters confronted security forces, rights groups and local media said Sunday, with demonstrations over rising living costs entering a second week.
At least 16 people, including members of the security forces, have been killed since the protests kicked off with a shopkeepers' strike in Tehran on Dec. 28, according to a toll based on official reports.
Overnight, protests featuring slogans criticising the Islamic Republic's clerical authorities were reported in Tehran, Shiraz in the south, and in areas of western Iran where the movement has been concentrated, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) monitor.
The demonstrations are the most significant in Iran since a 2022-2023 movement sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for allegedly violating Iran's strict dress code for women.
The latest protests have been concentrated in parts of the west with large populations of the Kurdish and Lor minorities and have yet to reach the scale of the 2022-2023 movement, let alone the mass street demonstrations that followed the disputed 2009 presidential elections.
