Iranians hit by economic woes
Working class erupts into protests against elite as living costs rise
Teheran: The Iranian town of Doroud should be a prosperous place – nestled in a valley at the junction of two rivers in the Zagros Mountains, it’s in an area rich in metals to be mined and stone to be quarried.
Last year, a military factory on the outskirts of town unveiled production of an advanced model of tanks.
Yet local officials have been pleading for months for the government to rescue its stagnant economy.
Unemployment is around 30%, far above the official national rate of more than 12%.
Young people graduate and find no work.
The local steel and cement factories stopped production long ago and their workers haven’t been paid for months.
The military factory’s employees are mainly outsiders who live on its grounds, separate from the local economy.
“Unemployment is on an upward path,” Majid Kiyanpour, the local parliament representative for the town of 170,000, told Iranian media in August.
“Unfortunately, the state is not paying attention.”
That’s a major reason Doroud has been a frontline in the protests that have flared across Iran over the past week.
Several thousand residents have been shown in online videos marching down Doroud’s main street, shouting, “Death to the dictator!”.
At night, young men set fires outside the gates of the mayor’s office and hurl stones at banks.
At least two people have been killed, reportedly when security forces opened fire.
Overall, at least 21 people have died nationwide in the unrest.
Anger and frustration over the economy has been the main fuel for the eruption of protests that began on Dec 28.
President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate, promised that lifting most international sanctions under Iran’s landmark 2015 nuclear deal with the West would revive Iran’s long-suffering economy.
But while the end of sanctions did open up a new influx of cash from increased oil exports, little has trickled down to the wider population.
At the same time, Rouhani has enforced austerity policies that hit households hard.
Demonstrations have broken out mainly in dozens of smaller cities and towns like Doroud, where unemployment has been most painful and where many in the working class feel ignored.
The working classes have long been a base of support for Iran’s hardliners.
But protesters have turned their fury against the ruling clerics and the elite Revolutionary Guard, accusing them of monopolising the economy and soaking up the country’s wealth.
Many protests have seen a startlingly overt rejection of Iran’s system of government by Islamic clerics.
Under Iran’s Islamic Republic, in place since the 1979 revolution, the cleric-led establishment has considerable power over elected bodies like parliament and the presidency.
At the top stands Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say on all matters of state.
“They make a man into god and a nation into beggars!” goes the cry heard in videos of several marches.
“Clerics with capital, give us our money back!”
The initial spark for the protests was a sudden jump in food prices.
It is believed that hardline opponents of Rouhani instigated the first demonstrations in the conservative city of Mashhad in Eastern Iran, trying to direct public anger at the president.