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A new round of protests spread across Iran on October 4, 2026, with retirees taking to the streets in Kermanshah, Rasht, Ahvaz, Shush and Isfahan while students in Tehran staged a sit-in against disciplinary punishments. The demonstrations came as the dollar reached another record, the nursing system showed signs of accelerating personnel loss, energy officials warned of winter blackouts, and the government abruptly changed leadership at the Oil Ministry.
In Kermanshah, Social Security retirees combined livelihood demands with explicitly political slogans, including “Political prisoners must be freed,” “We want neither war nor killing; we want lasting welfare,” and “Street, street—the stronghold of workers.” In Ahvaz, demonstrators chanted that government promises were enough because “our tables are empty,” while demanding the release of imprisoned workers, teachers and protesters. In Shush, retirees marched over inflation, inadequate pensions, medical costs and restrictions on independent labor organization. Steel and Isfahan Steel retirees meanwhile chanted: “Our enemy is right here; they lie that it is America.”
The significance is not simply another pension protest. The slogans increasingly reject attempts to explain deteriorating living standards through external confrontation and instead assign responsibility directly to institutions inside the country.
Universities Return to the Front Line
At Tehran’s Khajeh Nasir University, students staged a sit-in inside the mathematics faculty to protest disciplinary rulings and suspensions. Student sources say three students have each received two-semester suspensions, while the broader university crackdown now extends to Ferdowsi University in Mashhad, where ten students have reportedly faced punishments connected to the 2025–26 protests, including a combined 16½ years of educational suspension for eight students and expulsion for another.
Iran’s dollar hit 268,500 tomans despite fresh Central Bank intervention.
A senior MP says people are dying because #medicine and treatment are unaffordable, alleges insurers are effectively bankrupt, and says $100 billion in trustee funds has not returned.
Meanwhile, gas…
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) October 3, 2026
Reports from Tehran and Shiraz universities also describe renewed enforcement of compulsory dress rules. At Tehran University, students reported motorcycle patrols monitoring women’s clothing inside the central campus; in Shiraz, personnel described as different from regular university security were reportedly stationed at entrances and threatened students with disciplinary action. The Khajeh Nasir sit-in itself was independently reported Sunday.
The simultaneous response to pension protests and campus dissent helps explain another development Sunday: Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf declared the strengthening and technological upgrading of police forces, along with improved conditions for security personnel, a “definite priority” for parliament.
Nurses Are Leaving While the Rial Keeps Falling
The health system is confronting a different form of withdrawal. Mohammad Sharifi-Moghaddam, secretary-general of Iran’s Nurses House, said around 70,000 trained nurses are currently outside the workforce, while resignations continue. He put typical monthly nursing pay at only 25–28 million tomans, saying that at current exchange rates it amounts to roughly $100 and that some nurses now regard staying home as economically more rational than continuing exhausting hospital shifts.
Hours of fighting in Rask. An MOIS office attacked in Nokabad. A separate roadside bomb kills a regime-aligned fighter.
Meanwhile, the dollar reaches 263,000 tomans, factories warn of power and #financing crises, and regime figures clash over who had authority to negotiate.…
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) October 2, 2026
That warning is especially striking because nursing graduates have reportedly risen from around 5,000–6,000 annually to 18,000–19,000, yet staffing shortages persist. Sharifi-Moghaddam argued that when frontline nurses leave, the consequences fall directly on patients rather than merely creating an administrative vacancy.
Meanwhile, the free-market dollar reached approximately 271,000 tomans Sunday. The Central Bank simultaneously offered quota dollars at 257,000 tomans through five banks, with adults eligible to purchase as much as $10,000. That left an immediate gap of around 14,000 tomans per dollar between the quota and free-market rates—roughly 140 million tomans on a full $10,000 allotment, before any costs or restrictions.
The intervention has therefore not restored confidence. The dollar was around 255,000 tomans only four days earlier; repeated official sales, arrests of currency traders and threats against online price channels have failed to halt the climb.
Iran’s #economy is breaking at the household level. The dollar jumped from ~60,000 to ~258,000 tomans in two years. @IMFNews sees ~69% inflation in 2026 and a contracting economy. Bread, meat, oil, and medicine have surged far faster than wages—so families buy half a loaf and…
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) October 2, 2026
Winter Blackouts—and a Sudden Exit at the Oil Ministry
Energy officials added another warning Sunday. Mohammad-Hadi Faghihzadeh, chairman of Iran’s electricity-industry syndicate, said winter blackouts are now a real possibility because of gas shortages, warning that some power plants could be forced offline for lack of fuel. He stressed that the imbalance predates the current war. Industry estimates cited at the briefing put the prewar peak gas deficit near 400 million cubic meters per day, while the electricity deficit in 2025 was estimated at around 20,000 MW.
Then came a significant late-night political development: Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad resigned, and Pezeshkian appointed National Iranian Oil Company chief Hamid Bord as acting minister. The presidency attributed Paknejad’s departure to “personal reasons” and said an earlier resignation had been rejected. No fuller official explanation was provided. His departure nevertheless comes at an unusually sensitive moment for the oil sector, amid falling sales, currency shortages and longstanding disputes over management and the return of oil revenues.
Even severe weather added to the domestic strain: floods killed at least two people in Golestan, left another missing, flooded homes and businesses around Karaj and killed roughly 240 livestock belonging to one family near Dezful.
Clashes outside Zahedan, and a security officer killed in Rask—an incident authorities initially downplayed.
Meanwhile, a senior parliamentary figure says Iran’s economy is “considerably worse,” food #inflation has topped 121%, and energy shortages are disrupting production.…— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) October 1, 2026
The deeper significance is socio-economic. Iran is moving beyond a conventional cost-of-living crisis toward an erosion of the bargain that ties people to institutions: work no longer guarantees subsistence, professional employment no longer guarantees dignity or a future, pensions no longer provide security in old age, and state intervention no longer convinces households that tomorrow’s money will retain its value. The result is a dangerous combination of voice and generational rupture: while some take their grievances into the street, younger Iranians watching successive generations see work, savings and retirement fail to deliver security may increasingly conclude that the problem cannot be remedied without fundamental change.