Protesters who flocked to Tehran’s Grand Bazaar area Saturday chanted against poverty, corruption and the ever-increasing cost of living, amid bad economic news.
In response to an online call to protest at the Grand Bazaar, crowds formed in the area around noontime despite massive intervention of security forces, both male and female, and plainclothes agents who had stationed themselves in large numbers in various locations to prevent protesters from congregating in any one place.
“Poverty, corruption, unaffordable prices, We will go on until toppling [the regime]”, protesters chanted while security forces tried to disperse them violently. Videos posted on social media show protesters and onlookers booing security forces and shouting “Scoundrels, scoundrels” at them.
Chanting began as did the firing of tear gas, shooting of plastic bullets, beatings with batons, and many random arrests by security forces when numbers grew big enough around the Grand Bazaar, a maze of corridors running over 10 km in the heart of the capital with several entrances.
People chanting “Poverty, corruption, unaffordable prices” and vowing to topple the regime at Tehran Grand Bazaar area.
Shops in several of the corridors, including the goldsmith’s lane, and a large shopping mall in the heart of the bazaar and adjacent streets closed when protests began outside.
Inflation is currently hovering around 50 percent. In the past few days this week rial has further depreciatedagainst the dollar and other major currencies, pushing up prices for many basic commodities. The dollar rose to an unprecedented high of 440,000 rials earlier this week, forcing the Central Bank of Iran governor Ali Salehabadi to resign. The new governor, Mohammad-Reza Farzin vowed to strengthen the rial again, and intervened on Saturday with some success.
On Saturday employees of several large companies, including the oil refinery in Abadan in the oil-rich Khuzestan Province and another one in Arak Iran, staged strikes in protest to low salaries and wages and in Rasht, capital of the northern province of Gilan shops closed in protest to the government.
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