In the Islamic Republic, people are taking to the streets and protesting against the mullahs’ regime. The state reacts with massive violence. What you need to know about Iran.
Jan 12, 2026, 7:28 p.mJan 12, 2026, 7:28 p.m
The most important key figures
Iran is located in the Middle East, between Turkey and Iraq in the west and Afghanistan and Pakistan in the east. The Caspian Sea lies to the north and the Persian Gulf to the south. The country has the largest gas and fourth largest oil reserves in the world; However, the economy is suffering greatly from international sanctions due to Iran’s nuclear program.
- Population: 87.8 million (2024). That’s almost ten times as much as Switzerland.
- Area: 1.65 million km². Iran is around 40 times the size of Switzerland.
- Capital city: Tehran (8.7 million inhabitants)
- GDP (nominal): $417 billion (2024). Switzerland’s GDP is $938 billion.
- Currency: Rial (1,000,000 Rial = 0.80 CHF)
- State religion: Islam (Twelver Shia)
- Official language: Persian
- HDI: 0.799; Rank 75 (2023). Switzerland is in second place with 0.97.
- Fertility rate: 1.68 (2025). In Switzerland the fertility rate is 1.29 children per woman.
Not an Arab state
Unlike Iraq, with which it is easily confused, Iran is not a majority Arab country but rather multi-ethnic. The most important ethnic groups are the Persians, who speak an Indo-Aryan language and make up the majority of the population at 51 to 61 percent, the Azerbaijanis – who speak a Turkic language – at 16 to 24 percent and the Kurds at 7 to 10 percent of the population. The Kurds also speak an Indo-Aryan language, but unlike the Persians, they are predominantly Sunni. There are also a large number of smaller minorities, including Arabs with around 2 to 3 percent of the population, who live primarily in the southwest.
Shia supremacy
With the Arab conquest of the Persian Sassanid Empire The Islamization of Iran began in the 7th century. Zoroastrianism and Christianity gradually declined in favor of Islam, but Zoroastrians, Christians and Jews were allowed to retain their faith in exchange for special taxes (jizya). From then on, the Persian language was written using an adapted Arabic alphabet.
Persian civilization strongly influenced the Arab Abbasid Caliphate through its court culture and administrative practices. Iranian scholars and artists played an important role in the Islamic world. Only under the ruling dynasty of Safavids Twelver Shia became the state religion around 1501, which separated Iran from its Sunni neighbors. Since then, Iran has been the supremacy of the Shiites.
The Pahlavi Dynasty
Under the Qajar dynasty At the end of the 19th century, Iran came increasingly under Russian and British influence. In 1907, the two powers secured zones of influence in the north and southeast, while the center of the country became a neutral buffer zone. 1921 Colonel Reza Chan staged a coup to Minister of War and later to Prime Minister. In 1925 he replaced the last Qajar ruler and ascended the Persian throne as the new Shah.
Reza Shah Pahlavithe founder of the Pahlavi dynasty, renamed Persia “Iran” in 1935 and tried to modernize the country along Western lines. To this end, he secularized the legal and educational systems and curtailed the influence of the Shiite clergy. In 1936, he further angered the mullahs by banning women from wearing veils. During World War II, the Soviet Union and Great Britain completely occupied Iran and forced Reza Pahlavi to abdicate in favor of his son Mohammed Reza. He pursued a pro-Western course, but sought a compromise with the Shiite clergy.
American intervention
The young Shah came into conflict with the Prime Minister in the early 1950s Mohammad Mossadegh. This one had it Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (today BP), which was under British rule and only a small portion of its profits went to the Iranian state. Almost all major oil companies boycotted Iran, which led to a crisis. The Shah initially fled abroad.
In 1951, Mossadegh was hailed as a heroImage: AP
After the US secret service CIA incited politicians, officers and mullahs against Mossadegh and there were street battles, the army loyal to the Shah deposed the prime minister and the Shah returned. Many Iranians saw the overthrow of the democratically elected prime minister, who was considered a hero, as a humiliation. The Shah’s rule was now based on a military dictatorship, in which opposition members were controlled by the feared secret service Savak were tortured. The United States, which viewed Iran as an outpost against communism during the Cold War, tolerated this.
Islamic revolution
Progressive westernization, for example through women’s suffrage and more liberal divorce laws, increasingly alienated the clergy from the Shah. The income from oil exports benefited only a few. Resistance to the Shah’s regime grew, and towards the end of the 1970s there were more anti-Shah demonstrations and nationwide strikes. The police and army took brutal action against it; also on Black FridaySeptember 8, 1978, when at least 64 people were killed during a demonstration in Tehran. Islamists committed Arson attacks on cinemas and bars.
The mass protests – carried by a wide variety of groups, from Islamists to communists – ultimately forced the Shah to flee. On January 16, 1979, he went into exile in Egypt, where he died the following year. On February 1, however, the integrating figure of the Islamic Revolution returned from exile: Ayatollah Khomeini. He was received euphorically by millions of people in Tehran. At the end of March, the population voted against the monarchy and in favor of an Islamic republic in a referendum.
Khomeini is received at Tehran airport. Image: AP
Hostage drama and mullah dictatorship
The already strained relationship between the Islamic Republic and the USA worsened when students stormed the US embassy in November 1979 more than 50 embassy staff taken hostage to blackmail the extradition of the Shah. Khomeini approved the action, which only ended with a diplomatic solution in January 1981.
One of the hostages is paraded before the crowd in front of the embassy building. Image: AP
Within a short space of time, Khomeini managed to dislodge the liberals and leftists who had helped to overthrow the Shah’s regime. Thousands of them were driven into exile, imprisoned or murdered. Islamic law, Sharia, was introduced; Women had to cover themselves with the chador in public. Her situation worsened significantly.
Bloody war
In September 1980, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invaded Iran, which had been weakened by the revolution. The aim of the attack was to occupy the Iranian oil fields in the south of the country. Although Iraq was supported by arms supplies from the West, Iran was soon able to push back the attackers. However, Saddam was not willing to make peace; the costly fighting lasted for years. It was only after eight years that the First Gulf War ended with a ceasefire, with no winner. A total of one million deaths fell on both sides.
Iranian soldiers wearing gas masks in 1987. Even poison gas was used in this slaughter. Image: AP NY
Supreme Leader Khamenei
In 1989, spiritual leader Ayatollah Khomeini died, following an internal power struggle Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Like Khomeini, he stood – and still stands today – as Supreme Leader with unlimited powers over all institutions. The reformers who were elected president on various occasions – such as Hassan Rouhani (2013-2021) – were therefore never able to fundamentally change the politics of the Islamic Republic.
The 86-year-old Khamenei has been in power since 1989. Image: keystone
The growing discontent among the population erupted in protests and unrest. It happened in 1999 Student protestswhich were quickly put down. This followed ten years later Large rallies of the so-called Green Movement against the officially announced results of the presidential election, which gave the incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the absolute majority of votes. These protests were suppressed, as were those that took place in September 2022 sparked by the death of Jina Mahsa Aminiwho was arrested and mistreated by the Islamic moral police.
Protest against the regime after Amini’s death. Image: keystone
Israel and the nuclear program
From the beginning, the mullahs’ regime viewed the Jewish state – which had maintained good relations with Iran during the Shah’s era – as a mortal enemy. Several times Ayatollah Khamenei, for example Israel as a “little Satan” – in analogy to the “great Satan” USA – and as a “cancer that should be cut out and will be cut out”. The hostility has intensified since it became known that Iran was pursuing a nuclear program. Israel, itself a nuclear power, sees itself as a target of potential Iranian nuclear weapons and trusts the regime in Tehran to use them – true to the former president’s statement Ali Rafsanjaniaccording to which Israel could not survive a nuclear explosion, but the Islamic world could.
Satellite image of the Iranian nuclear facility in Fordo after the US bombing.Image: keystone
The two states are also rivals as regional powers. Iran was able to build a network of allied militias that acted as a proxy for Israel. These primarily included the Hezbollah in LebanonHamas in Gaza and the Houthis in Yemen. However, the downfall of this network began with Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023; Israel inflicted significant damage on these militias. With the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, the mullahs’ regime also lost an important ally. Finally, Israel, which had previously hindered the nuclear program with sabotage and targeted killings of experts, struck directly in 2025 bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities together with the USA.