PROTESTERS confronted police in front of Iran’s Majlis parliament today as officers fired tear gas to disperse them in a repeat of demonstrations that rocked the country at the start of the year.

The spontaneous action followed protestsyesterday that forced two major shopping centres for mobile phones and electronics to close in Tehran after an earlier forced closure of the Grand Bazaar.

Semi-official news agencies Fars, ISNA and Tasnim described the protests at the Grand Bazaar as erupting after the Iranian rial dropped to 90,000 to the dollar on the country’s black market, despite government attempts to control the currency rate.

Videos posted to social media showed protesters at the bazaar heckling shopkeepers who refused to close, shouting: “Coward!”

A short time later, just over a mile from the bazaar, videos shared on social media showed a crowd confronting police at the parliament, with tear gas in the air. Other videos showed police charging into the crowd.

Fars reported on the parliament protest, which it described as shopkeepers asking “legislators to stop rising prices.”

Chamber of Guilds head Ali Fazeli was quoted by Tasnim as saying the situation at the bazaar was calm, adding: “Their demands are delivered through the chamber to the government and these are being pursued by us.”

But this takes little account of the effect on bazaar businesses and small distributive firms that pay for supplies in dollars and sell for local currency, which has fallen in value by a third since April.