Over 271 protests in January in Iran

Staff Writer

The Iranian Regime continued to be besieged by protests in January 2019, more than a year after the anti-regime uprising began, with over 271 protests recorded across 72 cities, villages, and industrial areas. That’s an average of nine protests per day.

This is still lower than the amount that Iran was used to seeing during 2018, but it is likely only a temporary thing, due to poor weather (i.e. large snowfalls), limited payment of the workers, and the systematic suppression and mass arrests of protesters over the past couple of months. Let’s look at the breakdown of these protests.

Workers

Workers held over 192 protests in 41 cities, industrial centres and towns; an average of three per day. Most focused on unpaid wages, unfair working conditions, and the uncertain state of their employment.

Creditors

Creditors held 15 rallies in six Iranian cities, which is roughly one every two days. They were demanding the return of their looted investment from

• The Revolutionary Guards-affiliated Caspian Credit Institution in Tehran, Rasht, Mashhad and Kerman

• Padideh Tourism in Mashhad

• Badre Tous in Mashhad

• Talaye Samen in Tehran

• Padideh Institution in Tehran and Mashhad

• Kerman Motor in Tehran

• The Vermicompost Company in Dezful

• The Isfahan Town Building project

Pensioners

Pensioners held 11 protests in three cities, which is roughly one every three days. They were protesting the non-payment of their pension and their pitiful living conditions in Tehran, Mashhad and Shush.

Teachers

Teachers held 18 protests in eight cities, which is two every three days, over lack of job security, poor job contracts, the non-payment of their wages, and poor living conditions. They protested in Isfahan, Ardabil, Karaj, Khoram Abad, Yazd and Baghmalak among others.

Students

Students held eight protest rallies in five universities, including Tehran’s Tarbiat Modares University, Farhangian University and the Shiraz Medical Sciences University, among others.

Farmers

Farmers held 20 protest rallies in six cities to protest the lack of water for growing their crops, which is contributing to a food shortage in Iran.

Prisons

There were eight acts of protest in Iranian prisons during January, including various open letters from political prisoners about prison conditions, human rights, and the suppression of the Iranian people. While there were six instances of Iranian political prisoners going on hunger strikes in protest to their mistreatment in prison, being denied family visits, being denied medical care, the unsanitary conditions of the prisons.

This included:

• Alireza Tavakoli

• Nasrollah Lashani

• Mehdi Khanomi Pour

• Abbas Lesani

• Mahmoud Naji

• Samad Farhadi

There were 83 other protests in 32 cities that do not fit into the above categories, including the three-day rally by people in Sistan and Baluchestan Province over the Regime’s failure to finish the Zabol-Zahedan highway project and the gathering held by the families of the victims of the Sanchi oil tanker disaster who demanded the bodies of their loved ones.

What is clear is that these protests will not go away anytime soon, likely not until the Regime has fallen.