According to the Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Unions, teachers in at least 32 cities across Iran “went to the streets once again to raise their rightful demands” May 9. The income of working and retired teachers “has not increased in line with the inflation rate,” the council said, forcing many teachers “to turn to second and third jobs.”
The protests demanded the government guarantee students’ safety amid reports of continuing chemical attacks on girls schools; an end to attempts to insert the “ideological” viewpoint of the Tehran regime into science and other textbooks; and for freeing teachers and others imprisoned for their union or political activities.
The union added that by cutting funding the government has violated Article 30 of Iran’s constitution, which guarantees the right to free public education for all.
The actions ranged from less than a dozen to a couple of hundred people. Some university student groups, other unions and groups of retirees backed the actions. Above, the protest in Ahvaz.
While most took place without incident, in Bushehr, on the Arab-Persian Gulf, soldiers and anti-riot police blocked the streets around the Department of Education and threatened to arrest anyone who tried to protest there, the union reported.
In Saqez, in the western Kurdish region, despite security forces blocking the streets, teachers and retirees were able to demonstrate. But police violently dispersed the protest march in Sanandaj, arresting two teachers.
In Rasht, on the Caspian Sea, attempts by thugs loyal to the counterrevolutionary clerical regime to drown out the speakers failed.