Iran Protests Explained
Throughline
NPR
4.6 • 16.4K Ratings
🗓️ 22 January 2026
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Iran has been here before. For decades the country has gone through cycles of protest and repression at the hands of the Islamic Republic. What makes this cycle different?
In this episode of Throughline from NPR, we speak to two Iranian experts about their view of the past, present, and future of Iran’s protest movement.
Guests:
Ali Alfoneh, senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington DC
Holly Dagres, senior fellow at the Washington Institute and curator of the Iranist on Substack.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, it's Run. |
| 0:02.0 | In this month's Throughline Plus episode, our producers take us behind the scenes of making our episode on the first transatlantic cable. |
| 0:10.0 | To listen to these insider bonus episodes every month, sign up for Throughline plus at plus.npr.org slash throughline. |
| 0:19.0 | There was nothing like it was three years ago, you know. |
| 0:25.1 | The people's attitude, the people's words, I could clearly sense that no one is truly satisfied |
| 0:31.9 | anymore. |
| 0:33.2 | The city felt like fire under ashes. |
| 0:37.4 | Fire under ashes. |
| 0:39.8 | This is the voice of an Iranian graduate student, currently living and studying in the U.S. |
| 0:44.9 | She asked that we refer to her as K. |
| 0:47.8 | Back in early December, during her university's holiday break, she and her husband went back to Iran to visit family. They plan to stay a month. |
| 0:56.7 | This was her first time back in three years. She says Iran kind of felt like a tinderbox when she got there. |
| 1:03.1 | Not only because of economic problem or economic crisis, but also because of the suffocating |
| 1:10.6 | atmosphere and the lack of civil freedoms. |
| 1:15.5 | We will not be sharing her name because she asked to remain anonymous in order to protect her |
| 1:20.4 | family in Iran. |
| 1:22.2 | When I went to supermarket or hospital, bank, I've seen a conversation, I've heard the conversation that |
| 1:29.6 | people talk about Iranian currency and why it's really low and it's getting worse and what's |
| 1:37.3 | going to happen. They didn't see any future upon them. Over the last several years, Iran's |
| 1:43.3 | economy has been struggling. Sanctions from the U.S. |
| 1:46.7 | and its allies, mismanagement from the government, they've both played a major role in the downturn. |
| 1:53.0 | But things got way worse in late December of 2025, when the Rial, Iran's currency, basically |
... |
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