Chuck Grassley: “on December 28, last year, merchants in Tehran's Grand Bazaar took to the streets, protesting high inflation, protesting…”

“on December 28, last year, merchants in Tehran's Grand Bazaar took to the streets, protesting high inflation, protesting currency devaluation, and protesting a worsening economy in Iran. Accompanied by frustrations of constant political repression, then thousands of Iranian citizens have gone to the streets to protest. So what would you think is the normal thing in an authoritarian government? These Iranian government authorities responded with more repression and violence against their own people--their own Iranian people. On January 8, 2026, the regime also implemented a complete internet blackout. That made it, obviously, harder for Iranians to communicate with one another and to share evidence of the regime's abuses with the outside world. The same internet blackout has made it also more difficult to confirm how many protesters have been injured or killed. These reports suggest that thousands of protesters have been killed, and more than 41,000 have been arrested. And that happens to be more than double the number arrested in previous protests. The latest were in 2022, when Mahsa Amini was murdered, and the protests that followed that murder. The violence and lethal force used against Iranian citizens is alarming, and if you saw it on the streets on our own television, you would say it is outrageous.”