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Economic pressure remained the dominant domestic story on October 20. Service workers at Tehran’s Azadi sports complex protested outside the Sports Ministry after going three months without pay. The workers said the contractor had not received money from the state company responsible for maintaining sports facilities, leaving employees unpaid.
The protest comes as the government is under growing pressure to reopen wages more broadly. Tasnim reported that the promised midyear wage adjustment for 2026 remains unresolved, while MP Hossein Samsami argued that wages are not driving inflation and blamed the exchange rate instead. The IRGC mouthpiece noted that the government has resisted raising wages partly on inflation grounds even as workers’ purchasing power has been heavily eroded. Parliament’s Social Committee separately claimed it is preparing amendments to improve the salaries of government employees and retirees because inflation has made current levels inadequate.
Social Security still has no firm date for outstanding May pension adjustments, saying payment depends on securing resources. That is a more revealing indicator than routine pension disbursements: the state is struggling to meet obligations already incurred while real incomes continue to erode.
Economic strain meets damaged infrastructure
The damage to South Pars is another sign of how war has compounded Iran’s internal economic strain. State media says four refinery complexes are still undergoing restoration, after five were hit in the recent wars, leaving part of the country’s key gas-processing infrastructure impaired as winter approaches. The push for maximum production is therefore less a sign of recovery than an effort to project progress and reassure an increasingly angry public that the damage is being brought under control, even as key gas-processing capacity remains impaired and the risk of shortages rises with winter demand.
Tehran’s response to the rial’s slide past 270,000 tomans isn’t restoring confidence—it’s rationing it. A $2B dollar sale that fades in days. A $10k purchase scheme that requires 2.5 billion tomans most people don’t have. A crackdown on #Tether and gold. All while chasing $21B in…
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) October 17, 2026
Even at the local level, state reporting shows how basic deficiencies are accumulating. In rural Semnan, provincial officials were dealing simultaneously with shortages or problems involving flour supplies, deteriorating electricity poles, rural roads, qanats, agricultural fuel and reliable electricity for farming.
The previous two days’ protests remain relevant context. Telecommunications retirees demonstrated in Kurdistan, Kermanshah, Isfahan, Hamedan and Ilam, accusing the IRGC Cooperative Foundation and the Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order of taking control of assets they say belonged to workers and retirees. Other pensioner demonstrations were reported in Tehran, Rasht, Kermanshah, Shush, Ahvaz and Isfahan, with slogans directly blaming domestic corruption and economic policy.
Karbaschi convicted as factional conflict sharpens
The domestic political struggle also escalated. A Tehran press-court jury found Gholamhossein Karbaschi, managing director of Hammihan, guilty over articles published during the January unrest. Tasnim said the allegations included publishing material deemed harmful to the foundations of the Islamic Republic, spreading false information and encouraging acts against national security. A final court ruling has yet to be issued.
Iran’s regime is acting like one afraid of the next eruption: 11 people arrested months after #IranProtests and branded part of a foreign “coup,” 44 million screened for extra food aid, and hardliners accusing rival insiders of serving Washington. The fear is that these pressures…
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) October 17, 2026
The verdict comes as Karbaschi is already under sustained political attack for arguing that Tehran bears responsibility for the collapse of the Islamabad understanding and for challenging official claims of victory in the war. Paydari Front secretary-general Sadegh Mahsouli accused him of effectively acting as a “White House spokesman,” described rival political currents as engaged in “begging and surrender,” and insisted that hardship should be answered through ideological steadfastness rather than accommodation.
This is increasingly more than rhetorical competition. Over recent days, hardline figures have called for judicial or security action against figures advocating negotiation or “tactical retreat,” while other insiders have warned that refusing compromise risks another destructive war. The Karbaschi verdict therefore lands in an environment where foreign-policy disagreement is increasingly being processed through domestic legal and political coercion.
There are signs of pressure extending beyond elite figures. A human rights group reported that families of people killed during the January 2026 protests are being warned not to visit graves, hold ceremonies, contact other bereaved families or post about the killings online.
Iran’s regime is increasingly governing by emergency: retirees protested across multiple cities, the Assembly of Experts urged nightly rallies to continue until “full security” is restored, Tehran lost 7,000 students, 70,000 nurses are reportedly out of the profession, and #oil…
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) October 18, 2026
The regime is meanwhile sustaining nightly pro-establishment rallies. State television reported that such gatherings have continued for more than 230 consecutive nights in places including North Khorasan, Qarchak and Bukan, framed explicitly around loyalty, security and “resistance.” Their persistence suggests that these are not simply ceremonial demonstrations; the state is treating continuous visible mobilization as part of its domestic political-security posture.
Meanwhile, senior military figures are threatening wider retaliation against regional infrastructure and even submarine communications cables if another war begins. On October 19, IRGC spokesman Hossein Mohebbi said that any “third phase” of war could bring a “new geography,” “new targets” and “new weapons,” explicitly pointing to the seven major submarine internet cables running beneath the Strait of Hormuz.
The events demonstrate a regime increasingly trapped in crises rooted partly in its own policies and institutions. The emerging pattern is that the deeper the regime sinks into economic, social and political pressure, the more heavily it relies on repression, enforced displays of unity and threats of wider war—apparently treating any relaxation of pressure or sign of retreat as a potentially dangerous loss of control.