On International Women's Day on March 8, 1979, a women's march took place in Tehran in Iran. The march was originally intended to celebrate the International Women's Day, but transformed into massive protests against the changes taking place in women's rights during the Iranian revolution, specifically the introduction of mandatory hijab (veiling), which had been announced the day before. The protests lasted for six days, from 8 March to 14 March 1979, with thousands of women participating. 

The Iranian student protests of July 1999 (Also known as Kouye Daneshgah Disaster were the most widespread and violent public protests to occur in Iran since the early years of the Iranian revolution. The protests began on 8 July with peaceful demonstrations in Tehran against the closure of the reformist newspaper, Salam. Following the demonstrations, a student dormitory was raided by riot police that night during which a student was killed. The raid sparked six days of demonstrations and rioting throughout the country, during which at least three other people were killed and more than 200 injured. In the aftermath of these incidents, more than seventy students disappeared. In addition to an estimated 1,200–1,400 detainees, the "whereabouts and condition" of five students named by Human Rights Watch who are believed to be detained by Iranian authorities remain unknown. 

After incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared victory in the 2009 Iranian presidential election, protests broke out in major cities across Iran in support of opposition candidates. The protests continued until 2010, and were titled the Iranian Green Movement by their proponents. Due to the sporadic cases of violence present at the protests, the government had the police and paramilitary Basij violently suppress them; protesters were beaten, pepper sprayed, arrested and tortured, and even shot in some cases. The most widely known firearm victim was Neda Agha-Soltan, whose last moments were uploaded to YouTube and broadcast around the world. Opposition groups also reported thousands more were arrested and tortured in prisons around the country, with former inmates alleging mass rape of men, women, and children by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards. The Iranian government confirmed the deaths of 36 people during the protests, while unconfirmed reports by Mousavi supporters allege at least 72 deaths (over twice as many) in the three months following the election. They claimed relatives of the deceased were forced to sign documents citing death by heart attack or meningitis.  Iranian authorities closed universities in Tehran, blocked websites, cut off mobile signals and banned rallies 

Public protests took place in several cities in Iran beginning on 28 December 2017 and continued into early 2018. Initially focused on the economic policies of the country's government, their scope of the protests expanded to include political opposition to the theocratic regime of Iran and its longtime Supreme Leader, as protests spread throughout the country. To prevent rioting, the Supreme National Security Council of Iran decided to cut off all social networks, including Telegram. A series of nationwide civil protests in Iran, sometimes known as Bloody November or Bloody Aban took place in 2019 and 2020. Initially caused by a 50–200% increase in fuel prices, they occurred as part of the wider Iranian Democracy Movement, leading to calls for the overthrow of the government in Iran and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. To block the sharing of information regarding the protests and the deaths of hundreds of protesters on social media platforms, the government shut down the Internet nationwide, resulting in a near-total internet black out of around six days. In an effort to crush the protests, the Iranian government shot protesters dead from rooftops, helicopters, and at close range with machine gunfire. As many as 1,500 Iranian protesters were killed.

Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 was a scheduled international civilian passenger flight from Tehran to Kyiv, operated by Ukraine International Airlines.On 8 January 2020, the Boeing 737-800 flying the route was shot down by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shortly after takeoff, killing all 176 passengers and crew aboard. Missiles were fired at the aircraft by the IRGC amidst heightened tensions between Iran and the United States. The incident occurred five days after the United States carried out the assassin action of Qasem Soleimani. Iranian authorities initially denied having any responsibility for the aircraft's destruction, but investigations by various intelligence agencies from the Western world as well as by the Iranian public later revealed that it had been struck by two surface-to-air missiles. On 11 January 2020, the Iranian government admitted that the IRGC had targeted Flight 752 after mistakenly identifying it as an American cruise missile. The announcement triggered another wave of Iranian anti-government protests.