[21] As the protests spread from Amini's hometown of Saqqez to other cities in the Iranian Kurdistan and throughout Iran, the government responded with widespread Internet blackouts, nationwide restrictions on social media usage,[22][23] tear gas and gunfire.

During the reign of his successor and son Mohammad Reza Shah, restrictions on the wearing of hijab were lifted but women were granted suffrage, allowed to enter parliament, and "gained dramatically more rights in marriage".

But many of the women who left home to study and developed new values and world views, struggled to secure jobs that matched their new competencies,[20] and became less content with the Islamic Republic than their parents.

Protests started in Tehran as Mahsa Amini was being treated at a hospital there, and continued at her funeral in Saqqez, where hundreds of people reportedly gathered in defiance of official warnings and were fired upon when they shouted anti-regime slogans.

[42] Two weeks after the funeral, forty civilian were killed and many wounded in Zahedan in Sistan and Baluchestan province following Friday prayers,[43] after protests sparked by reports of a police chief who had raped a 15-year-old girl in Chahbahar.

[45] By early December 2022, a "vague" statement made by the attorney general was interpreted by some in the Western press to mean that the hijab law was under review and that the Guidance Patrol might be disbanded.

[47] The protests became more widespread than those of 2009, 2017, and 2019, encompassing even Islamic Republic power bases such as the holy cities of Mashhad and Qom,[48] involving both urban middle classes and rural working areas.

[53] Kurdish and minority rights are subjects of the protest—Kurds make up approximately 15% of Iran's population, are predominately Sunni Muslims (also a minority), the regions they live are among the most impoverished in the country, the use of their languages is restricted, they account for nearly half of all political prisoners in Iran, and have felt much of the brunt of anti-protest attacks by the government (which attacked predominantly Kurdish cities, like Sanandaj and Oshnavieh) who according to news reports, blamed the Kurds for the protest movement.

Since the foreign enemies and anti-revolutionary currents’ plans have been foiled, many of these youth now regret their actions.”[86] Prior to the release, hundreds of women have been detained and abused by the authorities who used torture and ill-treatment to obtain false confessions from them and from men who had also been arrested.

In November 2022, a Revolutionary Court in Tehran issued its first death sentence for one of the protesters on the charges of moharebeh ("enmity against God"), "corruption on Earth" and "setting fire to a government centre, disturbing public order and collusion for committing crimes against national security".

[94][95][96][note 8] The first execution of the Mahsa Amini protests took place on 8 December 2022, when 23-year-old Mohsen Shekari was hanged on charges of moharebeh for allegedly blocking a road and using a machete to wound a police officer.

According to Nature magazine, an independent investigation would be required, including access to hospital test results and interviews with patients, in order to draw any firm conclusions about whether some or all of the incidents were real poisonings, or whether the entire epidemic could instead be attributed to mass psychogenic illness.

[64] Human rights violations used by the IRI to intimidate and discourage protesters reportedly include use of "shotguns, assault rifles, and handguns against protesters in largely peaceful and often crowded settings", resulting in the killing and injuring of hundreds (Human Rights Watch, based on videos, interviews with witnesses and a security force member);[121] forced confessions, threats to uninvolved family members, and torture, including electric shocks, controlled drowning, and mock execution (based on CNN interviews);[122] sexual violence (according to testimony and social media videos, and several such accounts corroborated by a CNN investigation, including the case of a political dissident being brutally raped in custody),[123][124][125] “systematic" attempts using projectiles such as "pellets, teargas canisters, paintball bullets" "to blind protesters by shooting at their eyes" (activist media group IranWire documented at least 580 cases).

[131][135] IranWire and Radio Zamaneh, exiled journalistic outlets, collect information from Iran and have had drastically increased Iranian online audiences since the protests began;[133] they also broadcast by satellite.

[129] Multiple monitoring groups have documented rolling connectivity blackouts, affecting Iran's largest mobile carriers, with a "curfew-style pattern of disruptions" that lasts for 12 hours at a time.

[note 9] A 2017 speech by Supreme Leader Khamenei[151] is widely believed to have given his supporters/regime supporters "extrajudicial powers" referred to as atash be-ekhtiyar, or permission to "fire at will" against regime enemies.

[152] As of mid-2023, vigilantism by the core of regime supporters was said to be "on the rise" with reports of "armed men on motorbikes roamed the streets" in the city of Rasht, ordering unveiled women to cover up.

[20] 21 September a "Hijab and Chastity Bill" passed Iran's parliament, calling for new punishments on women who go unveiled, including prison terms of up to 10 years and fines of 500m-1bn rials ($11,800-$23,667) for "'those who do not comply … in an organised way or encourage others to do so'".

[165][164] In late April, Alireza Zakani, the mayor of Tehran, announced that un-hijabed women attempting to use the metro would be issued warnings, and eventually prevented from entering stations.

[20] Also around this time, a law was proposed in parliament that would impose a range of new penalties on women who defy the dress codes or advocate against them online, such as substantial fines and the “deprivation of social rights”.

[186] On 22 September, the United States Department of the Treasury announced sanctions against the Morality Police as well as seven senior leaders of Iran's various security organizations, "for violence against protesters and the death of Mahsa Amini".

[190] On 26 September, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated that his government would impose sanctions on the Morality Police, its leadership, and the officials responsible for Amini's death and the crackdown on the protesters.

The German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock promised that the EU would issue travel bans and asset freezing against Iranian officials trying to suppress the protests.

[195] On 13 October, Canada imposed new sanctions on Iran's government entities and seventeen government-affiliated figures, stating "the actions of the Iranian regime speak for themselves – the world has watched for years as it has pursued its agenda of violence, fear and propaganda" (...) Canada will continue to defend human rights and we will continue to stand in solidarity with the Iranian people, including women and youth, who are courageously demanding a future where their human rights will be fully respected."

The figures listed include former foreign minister Javad Zarif, army general Amir Hatami, and Saeed Mortazavi, an Iranian prosecutor whom Canada holds accountable for the torture (and in turn, death) of Canadian-Iranian journalist Zahra Kazemi.

[198] On 12 December, the New Zealand Government imposed travel bans on 22 members of the Iranian security forces connected to Mahsa Amini's death and the suppression of the protests.

Player Saeed Piramoon imitated cutting his hair to show support for the protests and calling for greater freedoms for Iranian women during celebrations for scoring the winning goal.

[208] During the 2022 IFSC Climbing Asian Championships held in Seoul in mid-October, Iranian climber Elnaz Rekabi received international attention for competing without a hijab.

[209][210] Handball player Sajjad Esteki, women's rugby captain Fereshteh Sarani, fencer Mojtaba Abedini Shourmasti and taekwondo artist Mahsa Sadeghi have all quit their respective national teams in protest, with Olympic wrestler Rasoul Khadem stating his support.

[211] In 2023 prior to that year's Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, the Brazilian team flew on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner chartered from Enrique Piñeyro that had images of both Mahsa Amini and Amir Reza Nasr Azadani, an Iranian men's footballer currently imprisoned for 26 years and facing the death penalty for supporting the protests on its tail wing, while the fuselage had the messages “No woman should be forced to cover her head”, "No woman should be killed for not covering her head", and “No man should be hanged for saying this” added as decals.