Retired Civil Servants Protest with Slogan for the Freedom of 'Imprisoned Teachers'; Municipal Workers Gather in Ilam

A group of retired civil servants, including educators, continued their livelihood protests on Tuesday, November 14, in several cities across Iran. Simultaneously, a number of municipal workers in Ilam also held a protest. According to reports received by Voice of America and citizen videos shared on social media, protesting retirees emphasized the need to fulfill their professional and livelihood demands in at least the cities of Qazvin, Kermanshah, Sari, Sanandaj, Ilam, Hamadan, and Ahvaz. These protesters, in addition to highlighting the necessity of preserving the social and economic dignity of retirees, demanded the realization of their rights, including an increase in pensions according to inflation rates and the implementation of salary equalization, while chanting 'Imprisoned teachers must be freed.' In Sanandaj, protesting retirees, emphasizing rising inflation and high prices, reacted to the unsupported promises of Islamic Republic officials by chanting 'Death to the liar.' Protests by retired civil servants, including teachers, have been recurring every Tuesday in several Iranian cities over the past weeks. In this context, the Iranian Retirees Council reported that a number of service-purchasing teachers protested in front of the governor's office in Rafsanjan, Kerman province, against unpaid salaries and their job status. At the same time, a group of municipal workers in Ilam gathered in front of the provincial courthouse to protest against the non-payment of their dues. Meanwhile, the Free Union of Iranian Workers reported that a group of retirees and survivors from the oil industry in Mazandaran protested on Tuesday against 'the encroachment on the oil pension fund, the government's decision to merge pension funds, and the non-payment of their legal salaries' in front of the Mazandaran Oil Workers' Pension Fund in Sari. The worsening living conditions of workers, retirees, and other wage earners have led to an expansion of their street protests. According to ILNA news agency, while the average income of workers is around 9 million tomans, the household livelihood basket in Tehran has reached 25 million tomans, and families live at least one week a month only on eggs. Previously, several economic experts in Iran criticized the rising inflation, stating that the mismatch between incomes and living costs has led to increased public dissatisfaction and emphasized the inability of Islamic Republic officials to solve these economic issues. Economist Hossein Raghfar identified the root of unrest in recent years as 'the inability of households to meet basic needs' and noted that wages have not kept pace with rising prices over the past few years. Farshad Momeni, an economics professor at Allameh Tabatabai University, also considered the decline in people's purchasing power compared to the past a very serious issue. Following the increase in inflation rates in previous governments, Iranian media reported in September of this year that in just two years of Ebrahim Raisi's administration, inflation has imposed at least a '250% increase' on people's living conditions, and 'workers' wages are one-third of the poverty line.' Earlier, Jamshid Asadi, an economist, told Voice of America that oil money does not reach people's tables because government budget deficits have plunged them into a vortex of money creation and inflation.