Is Iran Facing the Pre-Revolutionary Era?

Iran may be entering one of its most volatile periods of internal unrest since the fall of the Shah. As has been the case throughout history, the root cause of these protests is the regime’s failure to provide the most basic necessities: water, electricity, bread, and dignity. The current uprising is not just about ideology or foreign meddling it is about survival.

A powerful example of this sentiment comes from a report titled “No Light, No Water, No Future,” published by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). The report captures the core of what is fueling the unrest: widespread shortages, systemic neglect, and the government’s inability to respond to urgent public needs.

Summary Table: Major Protest Locations and Dates

City/Province	Date(s)	Nature of Protest & Scale
Nationwide (155 cities in all 31 provinces	22 May to 2 June 2025 – The date of compilation of this report – Ongoing	Truck drivers’ strike: Began in Bandar Abbas 19 May, rapidly expanded to 155 cities; paralyzed road transport, disrupted food/fuel supply, caused deserted highways, triggered solidarity from retirees, farmers, bakers.

Tehran	Jan–May 2025	Retirees, bakers, truckers, students, blackouts, water cuts
Mashhad	24 May 2025	Bakers’ protest (met with tear gas), retirees, truckers
Shiraz	8 May 2025	Bakers’ protest, agricultural losses, water crisis
Qazvin	6 May 2025	Bakers’ protest, industrial losses
Nesim Shahr	22 May 2025	Bakers’ protest, water shortages
Arak	13 May 2025	Bakers’ protest, industrial workers
Kerman	May 2025	Bakers’ protest
Bandar Abbas	18 May 2025	Start of truck drivers’ strike
Isfahan	May 2025	Truckers, farmers, water crisis (drying of Zayandehrood river)
Sanandaj	May 2025	Truckers, students, regime violence
Ahvaz	May 2025	Truckers, retirees, industrial workers, water crisis
Kermanshah	May 2025	Truckers, retirees, regime violence
Bushehr	17 May 2025	Water crisis, protests over water prices
Chabahar	22 May 2025	Water crisis, women-led protests
Khonj/Kazeroon	23-24 May 2025	Farmers block roads, protest well shutdowns
Ilam, Sistan-Baluchestan	May 2025	Farmers, water crisis, regime repression
Tabriz	May 2025	Student sit-ins, blackouts
Zahedan	May 2025	Sanitation workers, executions, regime violence
Shahr-e Kord	May 2025	Workers, vendors, regime repression
Yazd	May 2025	Protests

Iran’s Protest Movement and the Forgotten Ethnic Divide

The protests we mentioned earlier have found their way into nearly every corner of Iran  from Kerman and Kermanshah to Ardabil. According to the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, on June 9, protests erupted in Kermanshah, where retirees of the Telecommunications Company of Iran (TCI) gathered to demand their long-overdue pensions and denounce years of financial mismanagement.

Their chants said it all:

•“Retirees, rise up, shout for your rights!”

•“The Setad (Execution of Khomeini’s Order) has stolen our pensions!”

•“14 years of treachery, shame on you!”

•“The TCI obeys no laws!”

These chants are a clear reflection of a regime that no longer thinks about its people. For years, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his inner circle have neither contributed to the development of Iran nor offered a dignified life to its citizens. Instead, they’ve prioritized preserving their grip on power. As one baker in Ahvaz put it: “The lights never go out at the military barracks.” That quote sums it up — the regime keeps the army running while homes go dark.

Across Iran, from Mashhad to Kermanshah, the chants echo common demands:

•“Bread, dignity, freedom!”

•“The enemy is right here they lie when they say it’s America!”

But in Sanandaj, Ilam, and Kermanshah  Kurdish-majority provinces  the tone is even more defiant, and for good reason.

The Kurdish Factor: Layers of Repression

Kurds in Iran have long lived under a regime that not only neglects them but actively works to erase them. According to Amnesty International’s 2024 report, following the Women, Life, Freedom uprising, the regime increased its use of the death penalty, often targeting ethnic minorities  especially Kurds.

The United Nations has also reported widespread extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, and repression of language and culture. Today, Kurds make up an estimated 15–18 million of Iran’s population — but you won’t find these numbers in official government reports.

Why? Because the government doesn’t want the world to know. Even international researchers face limitations. According to Mohammed Karwani, director of the Kurdish Institute in Switzerland, after confidential talks with UN officials, he estimated the number to be 18,281,137 Kurds in Iran. He noted that this figure may include Luri populations — ethno linguistically close to Kurds — who live in the southern Zagros Mountains.

This includes:

•Half of Khuzestan

•All of Bakhtiari and Boyar-Ahmad

•One-third of Bushehr

•Large portions of Fars

According to Yale University’s Kurdish studies, Luri and Kurdish groups share cultural, linguistic, and historical ties. Yet over time, Iranian policy has strategically blurred the lines between the two — not to unify them, but to divide and dilute their identities.

Assimilation by Design: How Iran Rewrote Ethnicity

Iranian dynasties  especially the Safavids and Pahlavis  used tactics like forced deportation, ethnic reclassification, and linguistic suppression to weaken Kurdish influence. One of the most notable examples was the Safavid policy of relocating tribes to break up Kurdish strongholds.

In provinces like Lorestan, Ilam, and Khuzestan, distinctions between Kurds and Lurs were intentionally politicized. Over generations, many communities once classified as Kurdish were rebranded as Luri through state-imposed identities, despite tribal and linguistic records that show otherwise.

For example:

•The Bakhtiari region is often classified as Luri, yet its capital is Shahr-e-Kord, meaning “City of Kurds.”

•In the north Zagros, Laki (spoken by northern Lurs) is nearly indistinguishable from Kurdish dialects.

•In the southern Zagros, assimilation has been more successful: many Luri speakers

now identify closer to Persian, particularly in Bushehr, Fars, and southern Khuzestan.

In schools across these regions, Luri children are taught they are Persian, furthering the cultural erasure. Some websites and state-endorsed sources now incorrectly define Lurs as Persian, despite their roots in the Northwestern Iranian language family, just like the Kurds.

Even historical texts like the Sharafnama — written in Persian for political reasons document dozens of tribes whose linguistic and cultural roots are Kurdish, despite later being categorized otherwise. Recent studies from IRLP Journal of Kurdish Studies break this down in detail, tracing tribal affiliations, language trees, and assimilation policies.