A group of teachers of support schools in Yazd Province
in Iran held a protest rally on Tuesday, January 15, against the mismanagement
of support schools and demanded full payment of their salaries. According to
State-run ISNA, support schools began working in 2014 by buying educational
services from non-public schools to help provide education to more children in
areas that have shortage of manpower.
- On Tuesday, January 15, a group of defrauded investors
of the Caspian Credit Institute in Rasht held a protest rally and on Monday,
January 14, the plundered investors of Pardisban held a rally in protest
against the company’s scam. About 5 years ago, after extensive advertisements
by the state-run radio and television, people registered in the Pardisban
Company. Around 6,000 people who bought have lost their assets. The company
sold shares in Tehran, but the largest shares were sold in Mashhad.
On Monday, January 14, the retired teachers and
educators held a protest rally in front of the Farhangian Retirement
Organization in Tehran in protest to an ineffective supplementary insurance. At
the same time, in another gathering in Tehran, the plundered credit depositors
of the Samen Credit Institute held another protest in front of the Ministry of
Justice and demanded the reinstatement of their assets.
And a group of buyers of registered vehicles from Saipa
Diesel Company gathered at the Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade in Tehran,
and protested against the company’s failure to deliver their vehicles and
fulfill their demands.
In another development on Monday, January 14, during a
ceremony at Gonbad-e Kavus in which Hassan Rouhani, Iranian regime’s president
made a speech at the city’s stadium, the people of the city chanted slogans in
protest to the high cost and the economic downturn. However, the organizers of
the ceremony blared loud music from the stereo bands that were set up for
Rouhani’s speech.
Teachers and educators in Tehran and Yazd, as well as
the defrauded clients of the Caspian Credit Institute in Tehran and Mashhad also
held a number of protests on Sunday, January 13.
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Mrs Farangis Mazloumi, mother of political prisoner
Soheil Arabi, is under severe pressure because of her son’s continued
imprisonment. She said that she is being tortured every day and every night.
In the wake of the widespread campaign of those tortured
in the Iranian regime’s prisons, Mrs. Farangis Mazloumi recounts her experience
of daily torture because of her son being imprisoned in the Greater Tehran
Penitentiary.
Ms. Farangis Mazloumi on Jan. 16, described her visit
with her son: “Soheil was even weaker and slimmer than before. Bleeding and
nasal pain tormented him and toothache and cold were added. There is still no
sign of a doctor and hospital. The medical file for his nose that was broken has
been completely destroyed so that there would be no evidence of it, but it is
obvious from his appearance.
“Every Wednesday I’m tortured, too, and I
am even tortured throughout the week. We’re deprived of phone calls, until the
visiting day, which every time I go with fright, fearing that visits will be
banned once again.
“I am tortured every day and every night.
Will I be alive for 11 more years? How can I bear this suffering? Can my heart
endure all this torture? Is the life and youth of our children so worthless?
Every time I went to court, they gave me an uppity answer. Even Mr. Rostami and
Vaziri are not willing to see me either. So who am I supposed to seek my
justice from? Who will answer my plea from all this oppression?”
Soheil Arabi, a blogger arrested for insulting the regime’s
leader on his FB page and defying the regime’s oppression, spent 4.5 years in
Evin Prison and was subsequently transferred to the Greater Tehran’s
Penitentiary (a.k.a. Fashafouyeh Prison) in February 2018, where he is being
detained under harsh conditions. Soheil Arabi, 32 and married with a daughter,
has been subjected to various forms of mental and physical tortures over these
years.
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Leila Rasouli, a young paramedic who was unable to find
a job, ended her own life on Dec. 29. According to reports Leila was seeking
employment for a long time, but she was not hired in Hamadan. Mohammad Sharifi
Moghaddam, deputy director of the Nursing Organization, confessed to the status
of nurses on October 2018 and said, “Due to financial constraints and lack of
license for employment, there are 30,000 unemployed nurses in Iran.” (The
state-run Young Journalists Club – October 29, 2018)
On Wednesday, January 16, a 28-year-old woman
named Sabri Dashti from Oshnavieh, who had committed suicide on Sunday, January
13, lost her life in hospital. Sabri Dashti was married and had a young child.
In a shocking incident on Tuesday, January 15,
an 11-year-old fifth-grader studying at Asgharzadeh elementary school in Urmia
took her own life by taking pills. She lost her life in hospital.
On Monday, January 7, 2019, another woman, due
to poverty and inability to solve her livelihood and economic problems, threw
herself from the Zarqan Bridge at the Shiraz-Marvdasht highway and ended her
life.
On Saturday, December 22, 2018, a 36-year-old
woman from Kooy-e Saadi in Ahvaz committed suicide by self-immolation. (The
state-run ILNA – December 22, 2018)
Kooy-e Saadi is one of the relatively new
districts of Ahvaz, the capital of Khuzestan province.
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Three female protesters detained in the women’s ward of
the Evin prison —Saba Kord Afshar, Yasamin Ariani and Azar Heydari— have sent
out an open letter expressing their protest against high prices and living
conditions of the Iranian people, and vowing to stand beside their fellow
compatriots. The full text of this letter follows:
Iran a country rich with mines and oil wells a
wealthy country with poor people.
This is a sentence we always think about. Most
of the Iranian people live below the poverty line, with meager incomes that
help them survive but not enjoy life.
For years, we have been told to thank God for one
bite of bread. The saying comes from those who have pocketed a lot of money.
God must have thanked a thousand times, but
what should we do when our rights have been taken from us?
August 1 was the day when the state media
publicly announced that people can peacefully protest against high prices.
August 2 was the day we peacefully protested and got arrested.
That day we found out that nothing has
changed. Everything is like the murders, arrests and repression of the 80’s,
90’s, and 2009.
The difference is that now they smile at
people;“they lie and keep people hungry (both physically and
intellectually), and the proof of this is in the painful events that have been
repeated for a year: lack of water in Khorramshahr, detention of minorities,
economic inflation, execution of political prisoners, the privatization of Haft
Tappeh (Sugarcane Complex) and the arrest of workers, school fires, sexual
abuse of students, the protests of teachers to obtain their rights, the
executions of the “kings of embezzlement,” the bus crash at the School of
Research and Sciences, and the arrests of those who protested this terrible
accident…
Iran has been sanctioned because of its violation of
human rights and the allocation of the lion’s share of the country’s capital to
military budgets for internal and external conflicts. Now, the Iranian people
have to pay the price for the regime’s irresponsibility and put up with the
more difficult living conditions.
Perhaps they do not know that these days, the Iranian
people have become more aware and will not remain silent in the face of the
tyranny imposed on them. The Iranian people will stand hand in hand. Everyone
from every ethnicity or social class, they stand against oppression and
shortcomings.
We, Saba Kord Afshar, Yasamin Ariani, Azar
Heydari –three of those detained on August 2, 2018– continue to stand beside
the beloved and aware people of our country and continue to protest along with
you against the prevailing injustices.
Saba Kord Afshar, Yasamin Ariani, Azar Heydari
Women’s Ward of Evin Prison – January 2019
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Three female students in Hormozgan suffered burns on
their hands and facial area after an oven in the student dormitory caught on
fire, on Sunday, January 13.
They were cooking on a worn-out gas stove.They had
repeatedly reminded university officials of the defective gas stove, but
officials refused to repair or replace the stove due to lack of funding.
One of the students said, “When we first came
to the university, since the first term the gas stove of our dorm unit had
problems and we were forced to go other units to cook. Unfortunately, the
stoves in the other units do not have full safety conditions either and
sometimes female students would burn their hair because of it.”
According to reports, after several reminders and follow
ups by the female students, a specialist was brought in and they realized the
stove was not repairable. However, the university officials did not replace it.
The head of the university minimized the issue by saying
that a lighter had exploded in the female student’s hand and that nothing
significant had happened. (The state-run Young Journalists Club – January 13,
2019)
Female student wounded in bus accident
In another fatal incident, a bus from the
Buein Zahra Technical University veered off the road. A female student was
consequently injured and transferred to the hospital.
Students say the bus had previously stopped on
the roadside several times, due to technical defects. (The state-run ROKNA news
agency – January 13, 2019)
About two weeks ago, an accident on the campus
of the Sciences and Research Branch of Azad University in Tehran on December
25, 2018, led to the deaths of eight students including four female students
and two other passengers. The accident was blamed on the aged bus fleet and
brake failure of the bus carrying the students.
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