Iran rounds up teachers as protests gain momentum
Iranian teachers are joining in the protest movement against President Raisi's administration, but security forces are responding quickly to stop them.
Thousands of teachers rallied across Iran on Thursday to demand a decent life and call for the release of their colleagues, who are languishing in state-run prisons.
In most of the protests in the capital, Tehran, as well as in major cities including Ahvaz, Sari, Rasht, Sanandaj and Kermanshah, the teachers were surrounded by a palpable presence of riot police, according to videos posted on the official outlet run by the unionists.
Only hours into the rallies, Iranian intelligence agents had detained up to 100 leading activists nationwide, including 60 in the southern city of Shiraz alone, in what appeared to be a pre-emptive measure to minimize the size of the demonstrations.
In their slogans, the protesting teachers said they "preferred death over humiliation" and slammed hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi for his "lies" and "much ado without fulfilling promises." The teachers accused Raisi of pushing Iran's middle class well below the poverty line in less than a year of his presidency.
