When Iran’s ongoing protests began in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar on Dec. 28 2025, the government initially treated them as manageable and temporary.

Bazaar merchants have historically been among the most conservative social groups in Iran, deeply embedded in the state’s economic structure and closely connected to political authority. Within the Iranian government itself, there was apparent confidence that their protests were not revolutionary in nature but transactional – a short-lived pressure campaign aimed at stabilizing the collapsing currency and curbing inflation that directly threatened merchants’ livelihoods.

This perception led to an unprecedented development. In his first public response, Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei openly acknowledged the merchants’ protests – the first time he had ever accepted the legitimacy of any demonstration.

He characterized them as part of the traditional alliance between the state and the bazaar, indicating that the government still viewed the unrest as controllable.

But authorities did not anticipate what happened next: The protests spread to over 25 provinces and developed into a nationwide challenge to the government’s survival, met by a violent crackdown in which more than 6,000 protesters have reportedly been killed.

As an expert on Iran’s ethnic groups, I have watched as the unrest has expanded to include minority groups – despite skepticism among these communities over the possible outcome of the unrest and concerns over the plans of some central opposition figures.

As reports emerge of government forces killing thousands, the central question has now shifted from whether the state can suppress the protests to how different regions of Iran interpreted the concept of change – whether it is something achievable within the government or necessitates regime change itself.

Iran is a country of about 93 million people whose modern state was built around a centralized national identity rather than ethnic pluralism.

But that masks a large and politically significant ethnic minority population. While 51% form the

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