Iran International
Iran’s January protests were the predictable result of years of ignored economic and social warning signs, according to one of the country’s most prominent economists, who says the state failed to recognize how close society had come to the brink.
In an op-ed published this week in one of Iran’s leading economic newspapers, Donya-ye Eghtesad, the economist Massoud Nili described the country’s current predicament as a failure of governance that left mounting problems and public grievances unaddressed.
“The current situation marks one of the saddest and most critical junctures in Iran’s history,” Nili wrote, “a moment in which thousands of Iranians — mainly young people — lost their lives in less than 48 hours.”
He argued that “a combination of poverty, unemployment, inequality, inflation, psychological insecurity under the looming shadow of war, and cultural conflict placed young Iranians at the center of the crisis.”
The unrest began in Tehran’s historic Grand Bazaar in late 2025, initially driven by slogans reflecting economic hardship. Over the following week, they broadened into nationwide demonstrations calling for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic.
Protests peaked on January 8 and 9, following a call for coordinated actions by exiled prince Reza Pahlavi.
As many as 36,500 people were killed during the crackdown on those two days, according to an internal assessment leaked to and reviewed by Iran International.
Among the clearest warning signs, Nili noted, was the existence of nearly 12 million young Iranians who are neither employed nor enrolled in education.
Iran’s labor market, he wrote, has been effectively stagnant since 2009. While the working-age population increased by 4.4 million, the economy created only about 200,000 jobs, even as roughly 700,000 people lost employment.
Official figures suggest that net job creation has approached zero in recent years.
Other economists have echoed Nili’s assessment in the weeks since the protests and their violent suppression.
Speaking at Tejarat Farda’s economic forum in late January, Mohammad Mehdi Behkish described the protests as the product of “forty years of flawed governance and policymaking,” arguing that rigid political and economic structures had pushed society toward a breaking point.
Another prominent economist, Mousa Ghaninejad, pointed to the scale of the deterioration. In 2011, he said, fewer than 20 percent of Iranians lived below the poverty line. Today, that figure has risen to roughly 40 percent.
Declining oil revenues have further constrained the state’s ability to provide social support, while access to adequate nutrition and medical care has sharply declined.
Official data show inflation has exceeded 40 percent for at least two years, eroding purchasing power even among government employees and military personnel.
High inflation has enriched groups with preferential access to state-linked resources, widening inequality and deepening social resentment.
Nili concluded that a convergence of poverty, unemployment, inequality, psychological insecurity under the shadow of war, and cultural conflict had placed young Iranians at the center of the crisis.
Writing from inside Iran, Nili confined his analysis to economic and social indicators and avoided the political roots of the crisis—the deepening rupture between the state and a society that has come to resent the worldview and governing vision of its rulers.
He did mention “realities”, however, that if ignored, would steer the country toward “an extremely dangerous future.”
Security officials informed the families their presence at the February 11 pro-state march must be “verifiable,” including by taking photos and videos of themselves at the rally and sending the material to security bodies, informed sources said.
The officials, according to the sources, coupled the demand with threats and sustained psychological pressure, telling families that only if they comply might their detained relatives be released, spared execution, or see their sentences reduced.
The pressure coincided with a message delivered on Monday by Ali Khamenei, who in a short recorded video urged Iranians to demonstrate loyalty to the Islamic Republic and emphasized the need to stand firm against opponents of the system.
Pressure amid widening crackdown
The reported coercion comes as Iran International has previously documented an intensifying crackdown following nationwide protests, including mass arrests and a rise in reported deaths in custody. Observers have warned the pattern may point to a broader phase aimed at consolidating control and removing evidence linked to the violent suppression of dissent.
According to a statement by Iran International’s editorial board, at least 36,500 protesters have been killed during the unrest. Many viewers of the outlet have also reported widespread arrests, critical conditions for detainees, and, in numerous cases, families being left without information about the whereabouts or treatment of their relatives.
Statements attributed to detainees’ families
Separately, websites affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps published a text on Monday attributed to Mohammad Ali Saeedi-Nia, an entrepreneur and founder of the Saeedi-Nia Real Estate and Industries Group, alleging that he would take part in the February 11 pro-state rally.
Sources told Iran International that the publication was part of the same pressure campaign and aimed at extracting forced declarations of loyalty from families of detainees, using pro-government media to signal compliance.
Sadegh Saeedi-Nia, the son of Mohammad Ali Saeedi-Nia and chief executive of the family business, was arrested following the protests and subsequent killings and remains in prison.
Meanwhile, reports indicate a new wave of government-ordered closures of cafés and restaurants in Tehran, accompanied by the suspension of their social media accounts. Officials have not announced the reasons for the closures, which follow similar actions in recent months and appear to have intensified after the mass killings of protesters in January.
