Brief on Reports of Protests in Iran

Brief

Brief on Reports of Protests in Iran

Workers of the Ablorz tire Factory set fire to tires in this factory on Monday October 25 in protest to their demands not being met. These workers have not received their wages for several months. Worker representatives have threatened that they would gather outside the Tehran Industrial Ministry and the heads of the Ministry immediately announced that they would give this factory a 5 billion toman loan.

Workers of the Pashmineh Baft Factory in Qazvin also held a protest gathering outside the offices of this factory. These workers have not received their wages for one year and are forced to live in dire financial conditions. They also went from Qazvin to Tehran October 9 for the fourth time to hold a protest gathering.

Bus drivers – Tehran bus drivers went on a strike on October 24 in protest to not receiving their wages for putting in additional time. These drivers protested in the roads between Tehransar and Azadi Street.

Teachers – Teachers who receive their wages on a daily basis held a protest gathering outside the Iranian parliament on October 24 because of the expulsion of 36,000 employees of the educational system in Iran. These unsatisfied teachers had come from the provinces of Gilan, Mazandaran, Isfahan, Easter Azarbaijan, Semnan and Boushehr. They had several protest gatherings in Tehran especially in the past two months.
Teachers who receive their wages on a daily basis and are not considered official and can be fired at any time have been laid off to pay off the budget deficient in the Ministry of Education. Recently the Minister of Education in the Ahmadinejad government, Hamidreza Haji Babayi claimed that these teachers ‘had illegally entered this ministry’. This is while each one of the fired teachers had several years of experience and mostly had university degrees and master’s degrees. These teachers say that for the past four years in some provinces and in 2009 in Tehran and other provinces, the shortage of education forces in the Educational System was provided with these unofficial teachers. And their wages seriously varied in different provinces. But these teachers said that they did not say anthind and did not complain but now the government has evaded the main issue and has fired these teachers in the face of their patience.

The people of Larestan in the Fars Province held a protest gathering outside the home of the Friday Prayer leader of this town in protest to the divisions made in the country. These people demanded that that the town of Ouz and Biroum be joined once again with Larestan.

Economical News:
The price of home gas has suddenly increased in Tehran and has reportedly increased eightfold.
According to a Tehran resident in a “residential building which houses 10 families, the price of gas used to be 1 million and 847 tomans, but now even while we have used less than before, we had to pay 8 million and 338,700 tomans”.
“This is while 4 million tomans have been subtracted from the gas bill as government subsidies. This means that without the subsidies, the gas bill would be more than 12 million tomans”, this resident said.
While the Smart Subsidy Plan has not been carried out in the country, the increase of the price of gas given to homes has raised concerns that if these subsidies are scrapped, the price of gas would severely rise.
The price of electricity has also tripled and has risen from 162 rials per kilowatt hour to 430 rials per kilowatt hour.


Students Committee in Iran (Supporters of PMOI)