On Sunday, 7 Dey 1404 (December 28, 2025), Tehran’s Grand Bazaar—followed by markets across other districts of the capital—shut down in protest against the dramatic rise in the dollar exchange rate and the escalating cost of living. In a short time, the anger of the masses of the people, fed up with the high cost of living and the daily increase in the cost of living, poverty and destitution, inequality and class discrimination and oppression, the water and electricity crises, the environment, and air pollution, all of which are a direct product of the corrupt and inefficient system of the Islamic Republic, erupted throughout Iran.
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The rapid geographic and social expansion of these protests demonstrates the depth of Iran’s structural crisis and the shared lived experiences of diverse layers of society, which reflects the disruption of economic relations and the collapse of livelihood horizons in Iran.
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The people’s dissatisfaction with the current miserable conditions and deep-seated hatred toward the Islamic Regime, which had been accumulating under the skin of society since the suppression of the revolutionary movement of “Women Life Freedom,” was waiting for a spark to once again come to the surface from the depths.
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Over the past week, diverse groups of people across Iran have risen up in unity against the IRI and its mercenaries, anti-people forces. The suffering masses, especially the courageous younger generations, are bravely and selflessly engaged in a valiant struggle against the repressive forces of the Islamic Republic.
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To advance this movement toward victory, protests must grow into million-strong mobilizations in major cities and expand through unity and solidarity across all sectors of society, especially among workers in strategic industries such as oil and gas production and export ports, who with their strike can block the way for the Islamic Regime and its affiliated institutions, especially the Revolutionary Guard Corps, to export oil and gas abroad. The strike of oil and gas company workers can block the regime’s vital artery. The conditions-both objective and subjective-are ripe for decisive intervention by the Iranian working class through a political general strike. The current situation is revolutionary, and the Islamic Regime is in one of its weakest positions in recent years. Without a doubt, with a general political strike, the working class can deliver the final blow to the weak and decrepit body of the Islamic Regime of Iran.
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The continued existence of this bloodthirsty and inhumane regime means increasing poverty, misery, destitution and the collapse of the lives and livelihoods of millions of workers and toilers.
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The Islamic Regime will use all its power to create chaos and suppress the protests at this stage to prevent the protests from reaching millions in the big cities and the labor strikes to be formed. The Islamic Regime should not be given the opportunity to do so this time.
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At this critical moment, and amid the height of the Iranian people’s struggle to overthrow the Islamic Regime, Trump, the authoritarian president of US imperialist, has warned the Islamic Republic of Iran that if it kills people as it has done in the past, he is ready to defend the Iranian people. But Trump has forgotten to say at what point in the entire bloody life of the United States empire has his country attacked a country in defense or in support of the people, which have brought them freedom, justice and democracy? Not a single example. Not only such thing has not happened, it is not also in the nature of his country’s imperialist policy. What has happened so far is the opposite, and in all the coups it has carried out and attacks on other countries, it has never considered the interests of the people and has achieved nothing for the people of those countries except killing people, destroying their lands, creating civil wars and tearing them apart, or militarily occupying them. This empire has always used the people and their struggles to advance its political and military goals, serving geopolitical interests rather than the will or welfare of peoples.
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Now, at a time when the suffering people of Iran have risen up with courage and dedication to confront the criminal regime of the Islamic Regime for the fourth time in a decade, Trump intends to use their protests as a tool of war against the corrupt and criminal rulers of the Islamic Republic with the aim of diverting and destabilizing their revolutionary struggles. Something that they wanted to do during the Twelve Days War and failed to do so. The people of Iran foiled their plot and did not get to the street. Now, they want to divert the street struggles of the masses of the Iranian people through military intervention.
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The Iranian people do not need foreign military intervention to overthrow the Islamic Republic or defend them with military means. They are fully aware that war and bombardment do not bring them freedom or democracy. With nearly half a century of experience in revolutionary struggle, the people of Iran rely on their collective power and unity to determine their own future. They categorically reject becoming pawns of imperialist or regional powers.
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However, the masses of the Iranian people including millions of working people are far more vigilant than to allow themselves to be used instrumentally, their country occupied, and reduced to ruins. Aside from Reza Pahlavi and a narrow circle of monarchist supporters who support U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, the overwhelming majority of Iranians oppose foreign intervention in their country’s internal affairs. They do not regard U.S. Imperialist regime and Zionist regime of Isreal as their friends. Iranian People want them stay away from Iran.
Attempts by monarchist-affiliated media (Mano-to, Iran International, Independent Persian) outlets to manipulate protest footage and fabricate slogans in support of Reza Pahlavi and monarchy are widely recognized by the Iranian public as political propaganda aimed at courting foreign powers, not reflecting the reality of the protests on the ground.
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The masses of the Iranian people have experienced one revolution and four revolutionary movements in the past almost fifty years, relying on collective strength and unity. The Iranian people are a proud and free people, proud of their ability to establish popular sovereignty over their country, and never willing to return to the past and become playthings and subservient to the imperialists and Zionists, and entrust the fate of their country to them.
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The conscious and freedom fighting people of Iran do not want a sheikh or a king, they do not want war and destruction, nor the dismemberment of their country. They want prosperity, freedom, equality, and a dignified life. Anyone who hinders their struggle to overthrow the Islamic Republic and free themselves from the current miserable situation, whether they wear a turban or a crown, is the true enemy of the Iranian people.
The Association of Iranian Political Prisoners (in Exile) expresses its full support for the current wave of mass protests in Iran and strongly condemns the Islamic Republic’s violent and repressive measures aimed at suppressing the people’s legitimate struggle for a better life. AIPP in Exile warns the Islamic regime of Iran to avoid further aggravating its criminal record and not to pave the way for foreign interventions in Iran.
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The Association also firmly condemns any form of foreign military intervention, aggression against Iran, or attempts to divert or derail the revolutionary struggle of the oppressed masses of Iran.
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Association of Iranian Political Prisoners (in Exile)
4 January 2026