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Iranian teachers lead anti-government protests

IRANIAN teachers and farmers vowed to rise up against tyranny today as anti-government demonstrations continue to grow over the effects of a deepening economic crisis and water shortages.

Today’s protest in Isfahan was led by women teachers with many holding banners against low wages and for free universal healthcare.

They chanted political slogans against the Iranian clerical regime demanding the release of teachers who have been detained for fighting for better terms and conditions.

Several Iranian teachers, including Esmail Abdi, Rasoul Bodaghi and Mahmud Beheshti are serving jail terms for union-related activities.

“Prison, corruption, poverty and discrimination was not what our revolution was for,” the teachers said as they gathered outside the Education Department building in Isfahan.

Farmers from the southern province of Bushehr were angered over the decrease of their water rations from the Rais Ali Delvari Dam. 

The scarcity of water in central and southern parts of country poses the imminent risk of an environmental disaster threatening millions of people. It has seen Iranian agricultural workers join the upsurge of industrial and anti-government struggle across the country.

Authorities are moving to clamp down on growing dissent and discontent. Earlier this week leader of the  Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Factory trade union, Ali Nejati, was charged with “disrupting public order” and “spreading propaganda” against the Iranian government.

Workers at the sugarcane factory continued their strike action and have joined forces in solidarity with those at the Ahvaz steelworks where 41 were arrested last week as their dispute continues.

Tudeh Party of Iran international secretary Navid Shomali told the Star that workers have demonstrated the power of strike action in challenging the decision-makers and their policies in the country. 

The party opposes any form of foreign intervention under any guise, including those funded and supported by the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel. It called for a united struggle “of all progressive, democratic and patriotic forces in the struggle for peace, sovereignty, democracy and social justice.”

“Freedom of the detained workers and an end to the threatening and prosecution of union activists are among the main demands of the striking workers and the labour and trade union movement of the nation,” Mr Shomali said.

“Through joint campaigns, the level of solidarity in the general anti-dictatorship movement can be escalated, and progress could be made in linking and tying the separate protests together.”
 

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