Teachers in Tehran and across Iranian towns and cities continue their protests and strikes because of harsh living conditions and low salaries, despite pressure by the mullahs’ regime.
Yesterday, more than 1,000 teachers demonstrated outside the mullahs’ Majlis in Baharestan Square for the third consecutive day. Suppressive agents of the State Security Forces, under the command of Col. Massoud Jafari, beat up and arrested a number of demonstrators. To identify and harass the teachers demonstrating, agents of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security filmed the teachers.
The agents also arrested and confiscated the cameras of 10 students who were demonstrating in solidarity with the teachers.
Yesterday more than 1,500 teachers and faculty staff of learning institutions in the city of Dezful gathered outside the provincial headquarters of the Education Ministry, demanding authorities see to their harsh work conditions. Many agents of both the SSF and the intelligence ministry were continuously surveying the area.
Similar demonstrations were reported in Shiraz, Hamedan, Ahwaz, and Mashad. Teachers taking part in these protests and strikes demanded a halt to discrimination and deprivation in the teachers’ community and suppressive measures by the clerical regime against teachers’ associations, while denouncing state-controlled unions organized by the clerical regime’s rulers claiming to represent them.
The protests and strikes by teachers have been met with wide support from school and university students, and many schools in Tehran and across the country have issued statements of support.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
May 3, 2005
