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The Iran bazaar merchant strike represents two similar campaigns, one occurring in October 2008 and one in July 2010. The two strikes drew from the same social group (the Iranian merchant class), had similar objectives, and encompassed the same tactic—a general strike that spread to several cities of Iran. Iran merchants do not have a history of frequent striking—the October 2008 strike was the first large-scale strike since the 1979 Iranian revolution, in which the merchant community also played an important and influential role within the opposition movement.

The Iran bazaar merchant strike represents two similar campaigns, one occurring in October 2008 and one in July 2010. The two strikes drew from the same social group (the Iranian merchant class), had similar objectives, and encompassed the same tactic—a general strike that spread to several cities of Iran. Iran merchants do not have a history of frequent striking—the October 2008 strike was the first large-scale strike since the 1979 Iranian revolution, in which the merchant community also played an important and influential role within the opposition movement.

The Iranian merchant class makes up an important and influential sector of society. It is also one that has a long history of interacting with the government through the merchant class’s attempts to secure economic justice and fairer taxation policies, as well as challenging the status quo more generally. In 1890, merchants organized bazaar strikes in protest of the tobacco laws implemented by Nasir al-Din Shah, granting foreign companies a monopoly over the tobacco industry in the country.

In the late nineteenth century foreign governments were increasingly asserting control, and in some cases Iranian governmental figures adopted a fatalistic attitude about being colonized by Britain or Russia, both of which were competing for power inside Iran. In this atmosphere the shah of Iran signed a secret agreement with a British company in March 1890 granting a concession over all Iranian tobacco.