It took until the seventh day of the ongoing Iranian protests for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei to utter a public statement.
The protests began last Sunday when Tehran’s bazaaris (merchants) shut their shops and took to the streets over the country’s dire economic crisis.
Speaking on Saturday to families who lost loved ones during the 12-day war with Israel in June, Khamenei stated, “The people who work in the bazaar and shopkeepers are some of the most loyal people in the country to the Islamic system and the Islamic Revolution. One cannot challenge the Islamic Republic and the Islamic system in the name of the bazaar and the business community.
“But what’s important is that a group of people who had been provoked and were the enemy’s mercenaries stood behind the businesspeople and chanted slogans against Islam, Iran, and the Islamic Republic,” he added.
While attempting to emphasize that “protesting is legitimate, but it is different from rioting,” Khamenei noted, “Officials must talk with protesters. [However,] there is no point talking to a rioter. Rioters must be put in their place.
“We will not give in to them. With reliance on God and confidence in the support of the people, we will bring the enemy to its knees.”
Khamenei’s remarks on Saturday came from a playbook that Iranians have heard before.
One pattern has recurred across Iran’s modern history of mass protest. Demonstrations erupt as public anger spreads, the regime initially tries to deal with protesters, and then Khamenei speaks. When he does, the language shifts to a more threatening tone. Protesters become “rioters.”
Economic despair is recast as foreign sabotage within Iran. And then, soon after, repression hardens.
In Iran’s top-down power structure, Khamenei’s public remarks act as a signal to the regime’s security services to increase repression. Live fire has already been used against demonstrators during the first week, with as many as 15 protesters killed, though activists stress the true toll is likely far higher.
But if history tells us anything, it is that now that Khamenei has spoken, the crackdown will harden. Across three defining protest waves – in 2009, 2019, and 2022 – the public record shows that when the ayatollah speaks, the cost of dissent rises sharply.
2009: The sermon that changed everything
The Green Movement erupted on June 12, 2009, after Iran’s disputed presidential election that month, as millions took to the streets, accusing the regime of vote-rigging after the reelection of then-incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. For days, the leadership hesitated, and protests continued. Then, on June 19, Khamenei delivered a nationally televised Friday sermon.
Therein, he declared the election result final and warned explicitly that continued street protests would lead to “bloodshed and chaos,” placing responsibility squarely on opposition leaders.
Rights groups feared the speech had effectively given security forces a green light. Within 24 hours, the tone on the streets changed. On June 20, security forces used live fire against demonstrators. That day, Neda Agha-Soltan was shot dead by Basij militia, her killing captured on video and broadcast worldwide as a mark of the regime’s brutality against its own people.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International later documented dozens of killings, with estimates of 70 protesters murdered and thousands arrested, tortured, and killed in detention in the weeks that followed. The crackdown had already begun before June 19, but Khamenei’s sermon marked the moment when state restraint evaporated. From that point on, the regime acted as if it had explicit top-level sanction to crush dissent.
2019: ‘Do whatever it takes’
If 2009 hinted at the pattern, the crackdown of the 2019 protests confirmed it.
The protests began in mid-November, when the government abruptly announced a sharp fuel price hike, similar to December 2025. Protests exploded nationwide, particularly in poorer provinces.
As unrest spread, Khamenei intervened publicly on November 17-18, backing the price increase and drawing a sharp distinction between “the people” and what he called “hooligans” and “saboteurs.” He blamed unnamed “enemies” for exploiting the unrest.
Khamenei attempted to reframe the protests as security threats rather than legitimate economic grievances.
Almost immediately, Iran entered what would later be known as Bloody Aban, named after the Persian month. Security forces fired live ammunition into crowds across multiple cities.
At the same time, authorities imposed a near-total nationwide internet shutdown to prevent the coordination of opposition groups and demonstrators in a move NetBlocks and Amnesty International later described as unprecedented in scale.
The blackout helped in many respects to obscure the truth of the killings.
Rights groups documented at least 300 deaths, while other estimates run far higher, with Reuters reporting, citing Iranian officials, that as many as 1,500 people may have been killed. The figures provided to Reuters at the time, according to two of the Iranian officials who provided them, were based on information gathered from security forces, morgues, hospitals, and coroners’ offices.
Victims included children and elderly people gunned down in the streets, and Human Rights Watch reported systematic use of lethal force and an apparent shoot-to-kill policy in some areas.
The clearest window into the regime’s decision-making came later, when, in December 2019, Reuters published a special report citing multiple sources who said Khamenei had told senior officials, “The Islamic Republic is in danger. Do whatever it takes to end it. You have my order.”
“Our Imam,” one official told Reuters, referring to Khamenei, “only answers to God. He cares about people and the Revolution. He was very firm and said those rioters should be crushed.”
2022: Violence first, normalization later
The “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests following the death of Mahsa Amini in September 2022 present a more complex case.
Unlike 2009 and 2019, state violence began immediately, before Khamenei spoke publicly. Security forces beat, shot, and arrested protesters from the earliest days. Perhaps this is because of the concept of the protests themselves; they were not against elections or economic grievances but against the death of a young girl because of enforced Islamic law that many Iranians reject in the hijab.
However, what Khamenei’s speech did in 2022 was change the regime’s posture from reactive to entrenched.
On October 3, 2022, Khamenei broke his silence, blaming the unrest on “planned riots” orchestrated by foreign enemies and praising security forces. Reuters noted at the time that the remarks could signal a tougher phase ahead.
That phase came not only through street violence but also through judicial terror.
On November 26, Khamenei told members of the Basij that “each rioter, each terrorist, must be punished.” Less than two weeks later, on December 8, Iran carried out its first known protest-related execution, hanging Mohsen Shekari after a rushed trial.
Executions followed, and the regime’s message was that protests would now be met with the gallows.
In 2024, a UN fact-finding mission concluded that Iran committed crimes against humanity during the 2022 crackdown, citing murder, torture, sexual violence, and persecution, with more than 500 people killed and tens of thousands detained.
In 2022, Khamenei’s role differed slightly in that his speech did not unleash the violence but legitimized the authorities’ actions, shifting repression from a panicked emergency response to systematized state punishment.
A pattern, not a coincidence
Not every bullet fired in Iran follows the exact script, but across the three previous major protest waves in recent Iranian history, a consistent pattern has emerged.
Each time a mass protest erupts, Khamenei moves quickly to reframe public dissent as illegitimate, portraying demonstrations as foreign-directed plots, criminal “riots,” or acts of sabotage orchestrated by Iran’s enemies, rather than legitimate complaints against the regime.
In doing so, the supreme leader then publicly endorses the security forces, praising their role and explicitly backing their actions, removing any possible ambiguity about restraint or accountability on the streets.
Finally, through his rhetoric and, in some cases, through reported behind-the-scenes directives, he signals impunity, making clear that those tasked with suppressing unrest will face no consequences, while those who protest should expect punishment in place of dialogue.
After his speeches, sermons, or comments, the repression widens and escalates from using live ammunition to internet blackouts to executions.
The internet shutdown is something Iran watchers have expected during the week-long protests. So far, the state has not initiated a complete blackout.
Instagram, Iran’s most widely used social media platform, has been flooded with images of slain young men and women, accompanied by waves of condolence messages from friends, relatives, and ordinary users. This digital mourning has become a hallmark of attempting to spread what is really happening on the ground, as well as modern Iranian unrest, circumventing state media.
The lessons of 2009, 2019, and 2022 are not merely that Iran represses protests. It is the moment Khamenei intervenes publicly, the cost of dissent rises sharply, and the number of deaths grows exponentially.
And Iranians know that. That is why, when he speaks, the streets brace themselves for what comes next.