Retirees join Iran protests over economic grievances
The rallies were sparked by unprecedented rising prices across the food sector under President Ebrahim Raisi's economic policies.
Pensioners took to the streets in many provincial capitals across Iran for a second day this week to protest what they perceive as the government's failure to even out their pay with rapidly rising prices.
"The revolutionary government is such a liar," protesters were heard chanting in a video from one such demonstration in the central city of Ghazvin. The slogan appeared to question the government of President Ebrahim Raisi, which is taking pride in adhering to "revolutionary principles" promoted by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his hard-line supporters.
Elsewhere in other rallies, the protesters demanded the resignation of the president and "incompetent" authorities in his administration. In the western, underdeveloped city of Ilam, the pensioners staged their sit-in around an empty tablecloth, a symbolic move meant to reflect their struggle to make ends meet.
A similar gesture was put out by protesters in the southern city of Shiraz on Monday, as the retirees held a symbolic funeral for a tablecloth to highlight the disappearance of food from their baskets. In the capital, Tehran, protesters gathered outside the parliament building, where several retirees were reportedly pushed into police vans and "transferred to unknown locations."
