Nationwide teachers’ protests in Iran

Demonstrations and protest gatherings of noble teachers and employees of the educational system in cities throughout the country

8000 Teachers in Madhhad were chanting “Imprisoned teacher must be freed”

Today, in addition to Tehran, teachers staged demonstrations and protest gatherings against discrimination, injustice and mullahs’ plundering policies in other cities across the country. There were protests by noble teachers in Tabriz, Shiraz, Esfahan, Mashhad, Ahwaz, Karaj, Dezful, Hamedan, Qazvin, Bandar Abbas, Ilam, Shoushtar, Kermanshah, Sari, Rasht, Eslamabad, Babol, Sanandaj, Arak, Zahedan, Ardebil, Qom, Zanjan, Gatvand, Boukan, Saqez, Bushehr, Khomein, Baneh, Orumiyeh, Boroujerd, Torbat Haydariyeh, Yazd, Sarab, Marivan, Shahroud, Malayer, Roudsar, Paveh, Tabas, Birjand, Bojnourd, Qaemshahr, Roudsar, Astaneh Ashrafiyeh, Sanqar, Sardasht, Takestan, Farsan, Doroud, Shahreza, Sabzevar, Dehdasht, Kouhdasht and dozens of other cities. Protestors were carrying pictures of the imprisoned teachers. There was a significant presence of female and retired teachers in these protests.

In Mashhad, the number of protestors reached eight thousand. They shouted: “Imprisoned teacher must be freed”. In the protest gathering of teachers in Esfahan this same slogan was cried out. In Sanandaj teachers shouted “Teacher is vigilant” and “Our Farzad is alive”. Farzad Kamangar, a freedom-loving teacher from Kurdistan, was executed by mullahs’ regime henchmen after suffering years of imprisonment and torture.

Some of the slogans teachers carried with them were:

- Poverty-line is 3 million; our wage is 1 million
- We demand the release of imprisoned teachers’ activists (Bodagi, Bagheri, Hashemi)
- Teacher is vigilant and detests prejudice
- Teacher’s problem is livelihood
- Incompetent minister; resign, resign
- Effective insurance is the right of teachers
- End the dilapidation of 65% of the schools
- Take care of pupils in deprived areas who also have a right to oil revenues

The Iranian Resistance's President-elect Maryam Rajavi hailed Iranian teachers who have arisen once again all across the country in protest to discrimination, fraud and repression, despite government's massive intimidations and clampdown.

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Widespread arrests of teachers and workers, and hunger strike of political prisoners of Karaj Gohardasht prison in support of those arrested

On Thursday May 7, the hunger strike of political prisoners of Karaj Gohardasht prison in support of imprisoned teachers and workers continued for the forth day. Up to 10 hunger strikers had been on hunger strike protesting the transfer of imprisoned teacher Rasoul Bodaghi to solitary confinement.

They are also protesting the arrest of Ebrahim Madadi and Dawood Razavi, two senior members of the Tehran Transit Bus union, and the arrest of teachers and workers including the Azadegan oil company. They were arrested by the regime's intelligence agents for their protest against mass firings of workers and engineers and replacing them with non-indigenous people.

The clerical regime's intelligence agents in different provinces summoned a large number of teachers, principals and education staff, and threatened them to refrain from any protest. In Bukan alone 60 teachers were summoned by intelligence agencies and have been threatened with insults and outrageous behavior to refrain from any protests or participating in rallies.

Repression and arbitrary arrests, following the teachers and workers' calls to hold sit-ins, strikes and protests against the dire living conditions of millions of workers and educational staff, have got much wider dimensions.

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The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) is a broad coalition of democratic Iranian organisations, groups, and personalities, founded in 1981 in Tehran, committed to a secular democratic republic in Iran, based on the separation of religion and state. The Iranian opposition NCRI revealed the Iranian regime's clandestine nuclear weapons programme in 2002.

Follow the UK Representative of the NCRI, Ms Dowlat Nowrouzi, at @dowlatnowrouzi and Mr Hossein Abedini, from the NCRI Foreign Affairs Committee at @HoAbedini

For more info please visit: www.ncr-iran.org

ENDS

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