This is The Guardian.

Thousands of people are protesting in nationwide demonstrations across Iran.

These are really quite amazing images coming out of Tehran in other cities.

Thousands on the streets, buildings on fire, cars on fire.

But will the regime's brutal crackdown and internet blackout stop them?

It's bad news for the protesters.

If you can't get the message out to people, it's a lot easier for the authorities to use violence against them

as we have seen the Iranian regime using the past.

From The Guardians today in Focus, this is the latest.

With me, Lucy Hoth.

We're joining me as Devakabat. Thanks for coming up to the studio, Devica. So talk to me about where these protests started because they've been running into their second week now, so they're really significant. It started as economic protests, but it's now turned into something broader, right?

They started in late December as protests led largely by merchants, shopkeepers,

against a big fall in the Iranian currency, which has sort of hit a historic low against the dollar.

And from that, they have now grown into something bigger.

They've brought in people beyond shopkeepers.

And there are now calls for political

reform. So there are calls for effectively the regime to go. So yes, they started off as one thing.

And they've certainly morphed into another and into something that is going to be a lot harder

for the regime to contain. Yeah. And the numbers are striking. They're not quite where we

were when we had the last big unrest in Iran in 2022 and

23, but it's the diversity in how widespread they are across the country.

And the footage that's being shared on social media is a really big part of this story,

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