Iran: Policeman Stabbed to Death During Protests in Tehran

SadaNews - An Iranian policeman was stabbed to death on Thursday during unrest near the capital, Tehran, on the twelfth day of protests that erupted against rising living costs in Iran, according to local media.

Fars News Agency reported that Shahin Dehghan, a policeman in the city of Malard in western Tehran, "was martyred after being stabbed while trying to control the unrest," noting that authorities are working to identify the perpetrators.

The protests began on December 28, with a strike by merchants in Tehran's bazaar, expanding to include 25 out of 31 provinces, with a clear focus in the western part of the country where residential areas of the Kurdish and Lor minorities are prevalent.

Since the beginning of the protests, at least 27 demonstrators have been killed as a result of gunfire and other forms of violence by security forces in eight provinces, according to the Norway-based organization "Iran Human Rights".

These protests are considered the most serious in Iran since the demonstrations of 2022-2023 that erupted following the death of Mahsa Amini while in custody of the morality police; however, they have not yet reached the scale of the "Green Movement" protests in 2009 or the demonstrations of 2019.

The current protests represent a new challenge for the Iranian authorities, led by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, especially following a brief 12-day war with Israel last June, during which infrastructure targets were damaged and prominent figures in the security elite were killed.