2017 - 2018 Iranian Anti-Regime Protests and Security Flaws: Graphics

Nationwide protests have died down significantly following the peak of the protests on December 30, 2017.

Anti-regime protests began in Mashhad, Khorasan Razavi Province on December 28, 2017 and soon spread westward. The peak of the protests occurred on December 30, 2017 and dissipated over the next few days. Protests waned as regime Law Enforcement Forces (LEF) began to increase security each day before the time the protests usually began. Tehranis continued to gather in front of Evin Prison in Northern Tehran, Tehran Province to protest the detention and dubious deaths of detained protesters. They too encountered regime-directed securitization and have since waned. Regime rhetoric throughout the protests simultaneously acknowledged the legitimacy of some of the protesters’ grievances and warned of escalating security responses if the protests continued.

The graphic depicts the growth and dissipation of anti-regime protests in Iran from December 28, 2017 through January 9, 2018. It is a representative sample but not necessarily exhaustive. (Source: Critical Threats Project at AEI. Graphic produced using Ntrepid Timestream.)

The anti-regime protests spotlighted important problems with the regime’s front-line internal security forces. The potential renewal of widespread protests, especially if they become organized or armed, could pose a more difficult challenge for the regime than the protests depicted above. To learn more about the protests, please read CTP's dataset.  

View the data.

This is a timeline of anti-regime protests in Iran from December 28, 2017 through January 9, 2018. It is a representative sample but not necessarily exhaustive.