protests in iran An uprising that began in late December over soaring prices has evolved into a broader challenge to the religious rulers who have ruled Iran since the 1979 revolution.
State media have reported that more than 100 security personnel have been killed in recent days, but opposition activists say the death toll is much higher, including dozens of protesters. Al Jazeera cannot independently verify either figure.
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Let’s take a look at Iran’s main opposition groups.
What shape does the Iranian insurgency take?
Iran’s regime faces increasing pressure from a splintered opposition movement.
Some groups and individuals in this movement are located within Iran, while others are from outside the country and are voicing their opposition to the rulers. They are mainly exiled leaders and members of the Iranian diaspora.
Groups in other countries, including Britain and Germany, have also begun taking to the streets in solidarity with Iranian protesters.
Why don’t the protests have a clear leader?
Shahram Akbarzadeh, a professor of Middle Eastern and Central Asian politics at Australia’s Deakin University, told Al Jazeera that Iran currently does not have a unified opposition group capable of forming a government.
The rebel groups inside and outside Iran are disparate, each with different objectives. Some people have clear leaders, others don’t. However, no single figure has emerged as a clear opposition leader in Iran’s ongoing protests.
A possible reason for this is that opposition members fear retribution in the presence of certain leaders.
Iran’s Green Movement in June 2009 was a spontaneous mass demonstration by white-collar workers, women’s rights activists, and civil society activists against the official declaration of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory in perhaps the most publicly contested presidential election in the country’s history. The day after these protests began, Ahmadinejad and his supporters held a public demonstration in support of his declared victory. He served as president until 2013.
Ahmadinejad has been president since 2005. He was a hard-line conservative and was controversial for some of his opinions, including his repeated denials of the Holocaust.
Former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, who became an iconic leader of the Green Movement, also ran in the 2009 presidential election. However, since February 2011, he has been under strict house arrest for rejecting official election results.
Another candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, a reformist Islamic scholar and former parliament speaker, also played a leading role in contesting the election results and supporting the protests. He was placed under house arrest in 2011.
In March last year, Iranian authorities officially lifted Karroubi from house arrest.
Although neither figure is believed to be the focus of the current protests, in the wake of their example Iranian protesters in the country tend not to organize around a single identifiable leader.
Like other protest movements around the world, protesters in Iran have increasingly relied on networked organizations. Mobilization through student groups, social media platforms such as Discord, and neighborhood networks resulted in the creation of numerous community groups and community leaders rather than just one or two central figures.
This has recently been seen in the ‘Gen Z’ youth protests in Nepal in September, and in the July 2024 youth protests in Bangladesh that led to the overthrow of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
“[The] Mariam Alemzadeh, an associate professor of Iranian history and politics at the University of Oxford, told Al Jazeera: “Over the past few decades, the Iranian government has actively and effectively suppressed any attempt to mount an organized opposition movement in the country, arresting and silencing its leaders. Apolitical NGOs, trade unions, student organizations, and even anything resembling a bottom-up order have been suppressed.”
“As a result, there is no leadership or grassroots organization to rely on, and protests become dependent on the ad hoc individual and collective decisions of protesters.”
What are the different groups within the opposition?
In addition to the large-scale organized movement currently occurring within Iran, there are several rebel groups based inside and outside the country.
Reza Pahlavi and the monarchists
Pahlavi, 65, is the son of deposed Iranian king Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and heir to the former Pahlavi monarchy.
In 1951, democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh nationalized the British-controlled Iranian oil industry, before he was overthrown in a 1953 coup d’état supported by the United States and Britain to reverse that move and secure Western oil interests. The repressive monarchy was restored until 1979, when the last shah fled the country with the outbreak of the Iranian revolution. He died in Egypt in 1980.
His son, who lives in exile in the United States, now leads a prominent monarchist movement known as the Iranian National Council, but insists he is not advocating a return to the monarchy. Instead, he says he supports a secular, democratic system determined by referendum.
However, Pahlavi is supported by the Iranian diaspora and groups supporting the restoration of the monarchy. He is strongly opposed by other opposition groups, including the Republican Party and the left, and Iran’s opposition remains divided.
Many people living in Iran today do not remember the period of the monarchy. While some Iranians are nostalgic for the pre-revolutionary era, many remember its inequalities and oppression.
Alemzadeh said Pahlavi had emerged as the most prominent opposition leader in the aftermath of the Women, Life, Freedom protests that began in 2022.
“He enjoys the support within the company.” [the] The Iranian diaspora, especially the generation that left Iran in the 1979 revolution, is like him, but so are some of the younger generations. There were some chants of support for him on Iranian streets during the protests, but the extent of this is debated. ”
She added that Pahlavi’s appeal stems not from the protests’ credible planning or leadership, but from years of nostalgic promotion by diaspora and social media campaigns that have elevated Pahlavi as “the loudest alternative available” in a time of widespread discontent and a lack of other visible leaders.
“With the help of an online campaign on social media, which also received support from Israel, Reza Pahlavi was highlighted as a key figure to return to an idealized past,” Alemzadeh said, according to Haaretz.
It added that although Mr. Pahlavi is the best-known figure among the rebels, there is little evidence that he has a realistic plan or organizational infrastructure to manage Iran’s security apparatus, deep corruption, remaining loyalists, and basic state functions in post-Islamic Republic Iran.
Deakin University’s Akbarzadeh told Al Jazeera: “The call for Pahlavi’s return is a nostalgic response to the economic and diplomatic impasse created by the Islamic regime. It is less about seeking the restoration of the monarchy and more about rejecting clerical rule.”
Maryam Rajavi and the People’s Mujahideen Organization
The Mujahideen are a powerful left-wing group that carried out bombing campaigns against targets in the Shah’s government and the United States in the 1970s, but eventually broke away from other groups.
It is often known by its Persian name, Mujahideen-e-Khalq Organization, or by its acronyms MEK or MKO.
Many Iranians, including the Islamic Republic’s sworn enemies, say they cannot forgive the group, which sided with Iraq against Iran during the 1980-1988 war.
The group first publicly revealed in 2002 that Iran had a secret uranium enrichment program.
However, the Mujahideen have shown little sign of an active presence inside Iran over the years.
Leader Massoud Rajavi has not been seen for more than 20 years, first in exile in France and then in Iraq, and his wife Maryam Rajavi remains at the helm. Human rights groups have accused the group of cult-like behavior and mistreatment of its members, but the group denies this.
The group is the main force behind Maryam Rajavi’s Iranian National Council of Resistance, which has an active presence in many Western countries, including France and Albania.
Solidarity with the Secular Democratic Republic of Iran
A number of groups based outside Iran and seeking a democratic republic came together in 2023 to form the Solidarity for a Secular Democratic Republic of Iran (Hamgami) Political Coalition.
The hijab gained some popularity among the Iranian diaspora in the wake of protests in 2022 over the killing of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old who died in police custody after being arrested by Iran’s so-called morality police for not wearing the hijab correctly as part of a strict dress code mandated shortly after the 1979 revolution.
The coalition advocates separation of religion and state, free elections, and an independent judiciary and media.
However, it has not yet gained much traction within Iran. “I don’t think it carries any weight in the public sphere,” Alemzadeh said.
Kurdish and Baluchi minorities
Persians make up about 61 percent of Iran’s 92 million population, while other important ethnic minorities include Azerbaijanis (16 percent) and Kurds (10 percent). Other ethnic minorities include Ruhrs (6%), Arabs (2%), Baluchs (2%), and Turkic groups (2%).
In Iran, Shia Muslims are the majority, making up about 90% of the population, while Sunni Muslims and other Islamic sects make up about 9%. The remaining 1 percent includes approximately 300,000 Baha’is, 300,000 Christians, 35,000 Zoroastrians, 20,000 Jews, and 10,000 Sabean-Mandeans, according to minority rights groups.
Iran’s Sunni Muslim-majority Kurdish and Baluchi minorities have often clashed with the Persian-speaking Shiite Muslim government in Tehran.
Several Kurdish groups have long opposed the government in western Iran, where they have a majority, and there have been periods of active rebellion against government forces in these areas.
In Sistan Baluchestan province, along Iran and Pakistan’s eastern border, rebels against Iran include supporters of Sunni leaders seeking better representation in the country and armed groups linked to al-Qaeda.
When large-scale protests spread across Iran, they are often most violent in the Kurdish and Baluch regions, but there is no single unified opposition movement in either region.
