Death of Young Hairdresser and Trump Warning Raise Stakes in Iran’s Price Protests

A death that galvanized a movement

On the seventh night of Iran’s largest demonstrations in years, a 22-year-old hairdresser named Saghar Etemadi was taken to Hajar Hospital in the western town of Farsan with catastrophic wounds to her face.

Rights groups say she was shot at close range with a shotgun during protests driven by soaring prices and a collapsing currency. She died the next day, on Jan. 4. Within hours, her image — a young woman’s face shredded by pellets — spread across Persian-language news channels and encrypted apps, alongside a warning issued half a world away by the president of the United States.

“If Iran shots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue,” President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social at 2:58 a.m. Eastern time on Jan. 2. “We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”

Etemadi’s killing and Trump’s explicit threat of potential U.S. military action have propelled Iran’s 2025–26 protests into a more volatile phase, tying a domestic uprising over economic collapse and political repression to a high-stakes confrontation between Tehran and Washington.

From bazaar strike to nationwide unrest

The demonstrations, now more than a week old, began Dec. 28 in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, where merchants shuttered their shops to protest the freefall of the rial and inflation that has put basic food and medicine beyond the reach of many families. Within days, the unrest spread to more than 20 of Iran’s 31 provinces, drawing in students, workers and middle-class traders long considered part of the Islamic Republic’s social base.

What started as anger over prices quickly turned into a broader challenge to the political system. Videos from multiple cities show crowds chanting “Death to the Dictator,” a reference to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and monarchist slogans such as “Pahlavi will return” and “Long live the Shah,” signaling support for exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi.

Rights organizations based outside Iran estimate that at least 16 to 20 people have been killed and roughly 600 arrested since the protests began. They say the dead include demonstrators in Kurdish and Lur areas as well as Etemadi in Farsan. Iranian authorities have not released a nationwide casualty toll and have described figures circulated by activists as exaggerated or politically motivated.

Security crackdown and competing narratives

Security forces have used tear gas, batons, rubber bullets and, in several documented cases, live ammunition to disperse crowds. Iran’s police chief has acknowledged what he called “targeted arrests” of organizers and social media users accused of inciting unrest.

Officials refer to many of those on the streets as “rioters” and say they are backed by foreign enemies. State television has aired footage of burned banks and government buildings and interviews with security personnel injured in clashes.

Khamenei has told senior officials that Iran “will not yield to the enemy” and has called for punishing those involved in violence. President Masoud Pezeshkian, a reformist elected in 2024 on promises to ease tensions abroad and improve the economy at home, has urged his Interior Ministry to deal with protesters “kindly and responsibly” and said people’s “livelihood is my daily concern.”

But Pezeshkian’s public calls for dialogue have so far had little visible impact on the conduct of security forces, highlighting the limited authority of elected institutions over the Revolutionary Guard and intelligence services.

Saghar Etemadi: a new symbol

Etemadi’s death has added a personal and emotional dimension to the unrest. A hairdresser and nail technician from a modest family in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province, she had no prominent political profile before the protests.

Rights groups and Persian-language media abroad say she was participating in — or near — a demonstration in Farsan on Jan. 3 when security forces fired shotguns into the crowd. She was taken to Hajar Hospital and died a day later, those groups say.

Semi-official outlets inside Iran have questioned reports of her killing and described coverage by foreign media as “propaganda,” without providing an alternative account of how she was injured.

For many Iranians, images of Etemadi have prompted comparisons to earlier protest symbols: Mahsa Amini, who died in morality-police custody in 2022, and Neda Agha-Soltan, killed during the 2009 post-election unrest. Activist networks say Etemadi’s name has begun appearing in slogans and graffiti.

Trump’s warning and the risk of escalation

Trump’s post, delivered in characteristically blunt language, injected an additional layer of uncertainty. The phrase “locked and loaded” echoed his 2019 comments after attacks on Saudi oil facilities, when he said the United States was prepared to respond militarily to Iranian threats.

This time, the condition he set was domestic: if Iran “violently kills peaceful protesters.”

According to a Reuters summary, U.S. officials have framed the message as a deterrent aimed at preventing a large-scale massacre, not as a declaration of war. Supporters in conservative media have praised the statement as moral clarity and a sign of resolve.

Critics in the United States, including some members of Congress and legal scholars, have questioned whether Trump is effectively promising to use force over another country’s internal policing decisions without consulting lawmakers or allies.

The threat comes amid a more assertive second Trump term. In June 2025, U.S. forces carried out strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities during a brief war between Iran and Israel. More recently, a U.S. operation in Venezuela that led to the capture of Nicolás Maduro drew accusations that the administration was sidestepping congressional war powers.

Tehran pushes back at the United Nations

Iran’s leadership has used Trump’s comments to bolster its narrative that the protests are part of a foreign-backed plot.

Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and a former parliament speaker, warned on X that direct U.S. interference would “destabilize the entire region and undermine American interests,” adding that “Trump started this adventurism” and that Americans should “take care of their own soldiers.”

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi pointed to U.S. National Guard deployments during unrest at home and said “criminal attacks on public property cannot be tolerated” in any country, accusing Washington of double standards.

Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeed Iravani, sent a formal letter to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres and the president of the Security Council calling Trump’s post an “unlawful threat” and a “serious violation” of the U.N. Charter. The letter argues that efforts to “incite, encourage or legitimise internal unrest as a pretext for external pressure or military intervention” violate Iran’s sovereignty and says Tehran will respond in a “decisive and proportionate manner” to any aggression.

U.N. officials have expressed concern about reports of excessive force and rising regional tensions, but the Security Council has not taken formal action. Western governments, including U.S. European allies, have condemned lethal force against demonstrators while stopping short of endorsing Trump’s threat of intervention.

The economic pressure behind the protests

Inside Iran, the unrest reflects a convergence of economic and political grievances. Inflation exceeded 40% by late 2025, with food prices rising at nearly double that pace. The rial has fallen to around 1.45 million to the U.S. dollar, wiping out savings and making imports prohibitively expensive.

Years of mismanagement and corruption have combined with renewed U.N. nuclear-related sanctions and the aftermath of last year’s brief war with Israel — which involved U.S. strikes on Iranian facilities — to deepen the crisis.

Many demonstrators say the state spends heavily on regional allies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and armed groups in Gaza while Iranians face shortages of water, electricity and basic goods. Students at major universities have issued statements declaring that the “criminal system” cannot be changed “with reform or false promises,” signaling diminishing faith in gradual change within the existing political framework.

What comes next

Protests and strikes continue in Tehran’s commercial hubs, provincial cities and university campuses, even as security forces tighten their grip and authorities throttle internet access in restive areas. The movement’s trajectory — and the scale of the state’s response — remain uncertain.

So does the effect of Trump’s warning. It may restrain the most extreme forms of repression if Iranian commanders believe U.S. airstrikes are a real possibility. It may also harden the position of hard-liners, who portray the unrest as a battle for national survival and use the threat of foreign attack to justify further violence.

In the middle are millions of Iranians who began taking to the streets over the price of bread and rent and have ended up at the center of a standoff between their own security forces and a foreign power. As Etemadi’s portrait joins those of past victims on protest banners and social media feeds, the question hanging over the country is whether their struggle will be decided in its streets — or on someone else’s battlefield.