Bazaar closures evolve into anti-regime protests amid water crises and currency woes. Experts see systemic fractures, not single-leader movement.
By Giorgia Valente
Iran’s latest wave of protests did not erupt suddenly or as a unified political movement. What began with merchant strikes and shop closures in Tehran—particularly among traditionally cautious bazaar networks—has evolved into a broader rupture, driven by currency collapse, rising prices, chronic water shortages, and opposition to the Islamic Republic as a governing system.
With at least two believed killed after five days of demonstrations, some analysts and observers see support for the son of the deposed Shah, Reza Pahlavi, as the main factor, and others cite economic grievances. All agree it is a complex, multi-tiered reality.
That the initial spark came from merchant stoppages in Tehran was a notable shift in a system where bazaar merchant networks have long served as an economic pillar. Their decision to shutter businesses signaled that silence had become costlier than protest.
Nik Kowsar, an Iranian-Canadian award-winning journalist and cartoonist based in Washington, DC, situates this turning point within a deteriorating economic environment. “The currency exchange rate is not under control, and it has risen fast,” he told The Media Line.
For shopkeepers and small business owners, the plunge of the rial translated immediately into unaffordable prices and evaporating margins. “It’s like having your monthly income cut in half because of the higher prices, but actually you are getting the same money in rials, but not in US dollars,” Kowsar said.
It’s like having your monthly income cut in half because of the higher prices, but actually you are getting the same money in rials
Years of mismanagement, he argues, primed the ground for this moment. “People have been under pressure of bad governance and bad management, and it’s a good opportunity to go to the streets, because the security forces are having a bad time too,” he noted.
Ashkan Rostami, an Iranian-Italian political analyst, member of the Iran Transition Council, and co-founder of the Institute for a New Middle East, also traces the unrest to economic pressures while stressing how fast it spread. “It all started at the economic level, that is, initially with the bazaar, which is actually the economic node of the country, and then it spread quite quickly, and honestly, I didn’t expect it to be so fast. It spread immediately to universities; then, it also spread to normal people,” Rostami told The Media Line.
As closures spread and security forces intervened, the protests widened beyond merchant circles. Students, truck drivers, and other social groups began appearing in demonstrations, transforming what started as an economic outcry into a broader confrontation with state authority.
Independent Iran scholar Alireza Nader, affiliated with the Nader Research Group, cautions against reading the unrest as purely economic. “It’s important to realize that these protests are not just about the economy but are motivated by opposition to the Islamic Republic as a governing system,” he told The Media Line.
It’s important to realize that these protests are not just about the economy but are motivated by opposition to the Islamic Republic as a governing system
