Thank you for following our special day of coverage of protests in Iran.

Friday is the last day of the week in the Iranian calendar - the same as a Sunday in the UK - and universities and schools are closed, so Friday has been chiefly quiet for a protest movement that relies heavily on university students' organisation and planning.

In contrast, Saturday, the first day of the week in Iran, is the day when several protests usually happen across the country. You can follow more of our Iran coverage here.

Today's live page was edited by Alexandra Fouché, David Gritten and Francesca Gillett, with reporting by Jack Burgess, James Gregory, Yaroslav Lukov, Anna Boyd, Emma Pengelly, Daniele Palumbo, Raffi Berg, and our colleagues at BBC Persian.

Danial, who is 19 and from Mazandaran province in northern Iran, tells the BBC: "I do not say any more that I protest for this or that. I say that we protest for everything.

"There are many issues from economy to democracy to human rights for children to LGBT rights to freedom of expression, media freedom - everything.

Former Iranian MP Parvaneh Salahshoori, who is critical of compulsory hijab in Iran, has told BBC Persian: "It’s very painful to see young people getting killed on the streets for their basic right.”

She says she wants to show her solidarity with those who don’t want to wear the head covering.

In her opinion, the current round of protests won’t fade away like the protests that happened in previous years in Iran.

She agrees with those who call the current movement a revolution, adding: "People won’t go away like [in] previous protests, because when the middle class and lower class come together in an uprising [it] would be very difficult to [crack down on] such a movement."

She adds recent events should not be reduced to protests against the compulsory hijab policy and Iranians' voices should be heard in their entirety.

BBC Persian

The Iranian government has not published the number of people killed during the protests so far.

The same was true of the 2019 protests against the regime in the country, despite promises they would publish official figures. According to Amnesty International, 321 people were killed in less than a week during this episode.

It is unlikely the government will publish official numbers this time around. And if they do, it will be just one side of the story. The government denies killing "peaceful" protesters and sometimes claim "foreign agents" and even opposition groups kill protesters to provoke the nation.

At the same time, the country's media landscape is tightly controlled by the state. Even journalists who work for international media outlets and are based in Tehran are not allowed to report the protests or contact the family of victims freely.

Iranian journalists who try to use social media or outside media to report anything related to protests face possible prosecution. According to the International Federation of Journalists, 26 journalists have been arrested, including Niloofar Hamedi, who used social media to report the death of Mahsa Amini.

On top of that, the government has been accused of orchestrating a sophisticated disinformation campaign which made the verification of crucial pieces of information such as the number of deaths or the name of victims more complex.

Some victims' families spoke publicly about the pressure from the security apparatus for not talking to the media. And some even accused the government of forcing them to lie on national TV and say their loved ones died for other reasons, such as suicide.

That is why the number of deaths is still unknown, and human rights organisations such as Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch announce different numbers when they report the killings.

According to the latest report by an Iranian right group, Human Rights Activists News Agency (Hrana), based in the United States, the number of killings reached 224. However, the Iran Human Rights organisation in Norway has confirmed 201 deaths.

The BBC has been talking to young people in Iran about why they are protesting.

One young man - who didn't want to be identified - listed some of his reasons, which were to do with the cost of living, for example the prices of houses and cars compared with his salary.

"Also, the issue is not hijab," he says. "It is the problem Islamic Republic has with us. They all think about themselves, not thinking about us. Why so much empty promises?"

Caroline Hawley
BBC News

Image source, Twitter

Iran has faced plenty of protests before - but never has the regime had the challenge of how to face down teenage girls.

Images of school children taking off their headscarves, heckling government officials and stamping on framed photographs of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have stunned even veteran women’s rights activists.

"These teenagers have a different understanding of what they want and of what human dignity is," says Sussan Tahmasebi, who was arrested in 2006 in Iran and now lives in the US.

"They are going out there and demanding their bodily rights, the right to fundamental freedoms and democracy and they're willing to take huge risks for it."

She adds: "I'm surprised and at the same time I'm hopeful, but also fearful because of the level of violence that the state has consistently used against protesters."

Writer Azadeh Moaveni, who was in Tehran late last month, saw young women "fearlessly" walking around without headscarves even in some of the capital’s more conservative neighbourhoods.

They are young people who have "inherited generations of anger from their mothers and grandmothers, now seizing their power", she says.

And the state has a dilemma over how to respond. "Iran’s opposition has never been girl children," Azadeh Moaveni told me.

"I heard police who said that their neighbours, and mothers and sisters, are telling them not to lay a finger on these young people. Despite all the deaths we've seen, I think they're trying to refrain from a bloodier crackdown."

BBC Monitoring

In Iran, what you see of the protests depends on what media outlets you look at.

The establishment controls much of the media, but many people also get news from social media and channels on illegal satellite dishes.

State media usually echo lines from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other officials. And they have largely blamed the unrest on Israel and the West.

The "grandest cognitive warfare staged in the world ever" is how the influential Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-linked newspaper Javan described it.

On state media, the protesters are “rioters”. After schoolchildren joined the unrest, the government-run Iran newspaper accused the West of presenting a distorted image of Iranian youth.

Image source, Iran

Such responses ignore the many chants you hear on social media opposing the Islamic establishment.

When President Ebrahim Raisi visited a university, students told him, external to “get lost” to his face and chanted “mullahs must go away”. “Death to the dictator” - a reference to Khamenei - is not an uncommon chant. Sometimes, you even hear “death to Khamenei”.

BBC Persian

Mani Haghighi, the Iranian director who was going to London for the international premiere of his latest movie Subtraction, was barred from leaving the country on Thursday.

Haghighi says his passport was confiscated at Tehran airport. He is the latest artist who has been stopped at the airport.

The government also seized the passports of Sahar Dolatshahi, an actress, and Homayoon Shajarian, one of the country's celebrated singers.

The Iranian protests - especially the demand for women's rights - have been supported by many celebrities, including well-known artists and sports figures.

The government threatened to ban them from their professional activities, especially actresses who remove their scarves on social media or at public events.

Some Iranian football players have also been wearing black armbands to show their solidarity with the protesters in the Iranian Persian Gulf Pro League.

Among professional football players, Hossein Mahini, who plays for Saipa FC, was arrested for six days. He was one of the celebrities who publicly supported the protesters and urged the government for more freedom for women.

An 18-year-old girl in Iran, who did not want to be named, speaks to the BBC about why she has joined the protests.

"Why should I be at school from early to noon and at work from noon to night for just a petty amount [of wage]. Why? Why? Why?

"Why should I not have any hope for life in this country? Why should I study so hard and get nothing [in] the end! Why should my brothers and sisters be killed. Why? For what reasons? Why should it be like this?

"Why should I wear this bloody hijab? What may happen if a little of my hair is revealed? Why should we not have freedom of expression freedom of everything?"

Nomia Iqbal
BBC News, Washington

Image source, EPA

Over in the US, there's no doubt whose side Washington is on: President Joe Biden has praised the women of Iran for their protests.

His Secretary of State Antony Blinken has announced sanctions - with more on the way - against Iranian officials including the police.

At Friday's meeting with Iranian civil society activists in Washington DC, Blinken dismissed Iran's suggestions the protests were made by outsiders.

"If they genuinely believe that, they fundamentally do not understand their own people," he said.

This is a swifter response from the US compared to Iran's 2009 protests - when huge demonstrations broke out following the re-election of then President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a hardliner.

But this presents a huge credibility problem for President Biden: he still wants to salvage the deteriorating Iran nuclear deal, which critics say will pump billions into Tehran treasury.

How can he therefore side with the movement protesting Iran's government?

Recent polls suggest three-quarters of Americans want the US to pursue negotiations to prevent Iran from obtaining or developing a nuclear weapon.

The Biden administration still believes a deal with Iran will make the world safer, but for a president who has made "democracies vs autocracies" the central philosophy of his foreign policy, he finds himself facing a hugely strategic contradiction.

Image source, Mehr News Agency

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said that no-one should dare think they can overturn the Islamic Republic - as anti-government protests enter a fifth week.

He compared the Islamic Republic to an unshakeable tree. "That seedling is a mighty tree now and no-one should dare think they can uproot it," he said in remarks shown on state TV.

Image source, IRNA

At the same gathering, President Ebrahim Raisi, accused "enemies" of trying to create problems for the country.

He thanked the Iranian people for "supporting the government, especially during our economic reform" and claimed that country is progressing very fast.

Parham Ghobadi
BBC Persian senior reporter

An Iranian activist who was arrested in Tehran after giving an interview to BBC Persian is now accused of “spying” and having “relations with hostile states”, a source close to the family has told BBC Persian.

Iranian security forces raided Samaneh Mousavi’s office on 24 September, but she was not there.

Mousavi told BBC Persian in the interview before her arrest that her friendship with Hossein Ronaghi, a prominent imprisoned political activist, was why “security forces are after her”.

She also shared CCTV footage of the raid with BBC Persian which revealed the faces of dozens of “plain-clothed agents”.

Two days after BBC Persian broadcast the report, she was arrested.

“Security forces are furious that their faces have been revealed,” the source said.

Daniele Palumbo
Data Journalist

The BBC has been receiving hundreds of videos from different parts of Iran.

To pinpoint and verify each of them is the first and most important part as it allows our journalists to use the videos for their coverage.

Last night, we received a video apparently showing protesters approaching a building which is protected by armed personnel. Shots are heard while the demonstrators approach the building.

The voices and the source of the video have suggested that the footage is from the city of Neyshabur, eastern Iran.

As one of the building was heavily guarded, we checked where the town hall was.

Satellite images confirm the location matches the one in the footage. We can link frames of the videos to the exact location of the town hall (orange annotations).

We can spot the lights of a billboard, and - by zooming in on the image - we can also match that to a branch of the Mellat Bank in Iran square, Neyshabur (red annotations).

The footage was later used by BBC Persian.

BBC Persian

The BBC is hearing from young people about why they are protesting.

Speaking of his disillusionment, a man in his 20s says: “What hope could I have in my life considering what the Islamic Republic has made up so far for us?

"For example - the dollar exchange rate. When I was born, the exchange rate was around 3,000 tomans [about 10 cents] to a dollar; but now it has gone up 11 times.

"There are other examples too: sanctions, [internet] filtering, high inflation, lack of freedom, killing of our daughters, youth and youngsters.

BBC Monitoring
The world through its media

A billboard in central Tehran featuring portraits of prominent Iranian women has been changed after drawing furious reactions from some of the people displayed in it.

The ‘Women of my homeland, Iran’ image was put up on 12 October by a media company affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corp (IRGC), and featured over 60 well-known figures, including poets, mathematicians, and the mothers of slain soldiers.

But actress Fatemeh Motamed Arya decried the act in an emotional video, external, saying: "I am not considered a woman in a country, where freedom-seeking youths are killed in its public squares.”

Mountaineer Parvaneh Kazemi also posted on Instagram, external: “Shame on you, who only use the pictures of us, Iranian women, for exploitation."

There was also criticism from some social media users of the fact the images show all the women in headscarves, even those not known for wearing them - poet Forough Farrokhzad, for example, who died before the Islamic revolution and before headscarves became mandatory in Iran.

"These are not the real pictures of some of these women, who are not alive to criticise and defend their right," tweeted one commentator, external.

The billboard in Tehran’s busy Vali Asr Square is often used by the Iranian establishment to feature messages reinforcing its narrative of historical and political events and religious and patriotic values.

Image source, Getty Images

The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), a firm that collects real-time data on locations and dates of various conflicts, together with BBC Persian have produced this map about the ongoing protests in Iran.

The size of the point on the map below is relative to the number of days on which protests occurred in that city - not the overall number of protests.

Is there an alternative party ready to govern?published at 16:00 British Summer Time 14 October 2022

16:00 BST 14 October 2022

Lyse Doucet
Chief International Correspondent

A few questions have been sent in about whether there is an alternative to the Islamic Republic in Iran. Peter Bowden asks: Is there a viable alternative party ready to step up, ready to govern so as to avoid a vacuum of power?

The protesters emphasise that this is a leaderless protest. The demonstrations have spread to all 31 provinces, and many sectors of society. In most cases, they have been spontaneous and led by the young.

There are opposition groups based outside the country, but they are not leading this. And none have widespread support inside Iran. Some observers emphasise that it will take time to build a platform, a leadership, if this momentum is to be sustained.

In the past in Iran, protests have eventually died down after major crackdowns by security forces.

We have seen, in other waves of protest, including the uprising in many countries across the Middle East which came to be known as the Arab Spring, that leaderless protests by a young generation can be hijacked by more organised elements, including militaries and Islamist movements. The future of this wave of protests is still very uncertain.

BBC Persian

The BBC has been speaking to young people who have taken part in the protests about why they have chosen to join the demonstrations. Most of them do not want to be identified for fear of recriminations from the government.

One man, a 22-year-old from Golestan province in northern Iran, tells us: "The motivation and demands of people like myself and those of my generation is one specific thing - something which is the collective demands of all.

"Our demands have been suppressed to the extent that it makes it difficult to put into words.

"Our demands include freedom, self-determination to decide for ourselves and to exercise our wills on the basic needs of our [own] life; to decide the future for our children and family so that they do not feel the experience of suppression and humiliation that we have experienced."

We also have two special programmes on the protests coming up shortly on the BBC.

On TV, starting at 16:00 BST (15:00 GMT), you can watch an hour-long Iran Special programme on the BBC World News (only available outside the UK - previous schedules said News Channel would be broadcasting it, but that is not longer the case).

Also at 16:00 BST (15:00 GMT) is an Outside Source special, presented by James Reynolds, on BBC World Service.

In this special edition of the Global News Podcast, Jackie Leonard, with help from the BBC Persian service, explores the history of women's rights in Iran. And with the protests showing no signs of ending, BBC Monitoring tells us how to verify footage of the demonstrations.

We also hear a first-hand account of what it's like to be detained by the morality police, plus Iranians' hopes for the future.

You can listen to the episode on BBC Sounds here.