Teachers' Protest Gatherings Held in Several Cities in Iran

According to the Iranian Labor News Agency, ILNA, groups of teachers held protest gatherings on the morning of Sunday, March 1, in various locations across Iran. ILNA reported that the reason for these gatherings was to protest the budget allocated for the Ministry of Education for the upcoming year and the "discrimination among government employees." ILNA journalists also reported a noticeable presence of security forces at these gatherings, but there are no reports of clashes or arrests of protesters. The news agency noted that these gatherings were held without chanting, but teachers carried placards with messages such as "We complain of discrimination, not poverty" and "Support the culture-building teachers of society." According to ILNA, these protests took place in the provinces of Razavi Khorasan, Lorestan, Hormozgan, Kurdistan, Khuzestan, Fars, and Qazvin. The agency also reported that the number of teachers gathering in front of the Parliament building in Tehran reached about 600 by 11:30 a.m. on Sunday. Previously, the Iranian Teachers' Trade Association had requested the Ministry of Interior to issue a permit for a gathering in Tehran in front of the Islamic Consultative Assembly on March 1. So far, there has been no report of the Ministry of Interior's approval for this gathering. Some protesting teachers in Tehran and Qazvin told ILNA that their grievances stem from "discrimination in the education system and the non-implementation of certain provisions of the civil service law related to government employees." According to ILNA, the teachers present at the protests on Sunday demanded the implementation of clause 5 of Article 68 of the Management Services Law, which allows the government to allocate a maximum of 700 points for associate degree jobs, 1500 for bachelor's degrees, and 2000 for master's degrees and higher for job enhancement. Meanwhile, Mahmoud Beheshti Langaroudi, spokesperson for the Iranian Teachers' Trade Association, stated on February 22 that teachers have protests regarding "the budget for the Ministry of Education for the upcoming year and their livelihood problems." This comes as Ali Asghar Fani, the Minister of Education, announced on December 14 that the budget for this ministry would grow by 23% in the 2022 budget bill. The Minister of Education also announced in February that the ministry had received a letter from the government for the payment of 500 billion tomans in claims from educators. In recent weeks, teachers in various cities across Iran have gone on strike, held sit-ins, or gathered. Additionally, in early January, about six thousand teachers across Iran signed a petition addressed to Ali Larijani, the Speaker of Parliament, expressing their dissatisfaction with what they described as political handling of their livelihood issues.