HomeNEWSIRAN NEWSIran: retirees, pensioners continue protests as regime authorities ignore their demands
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Iran: retirees, pensioners continue protests as regime authorities ignore their demands

By Mahmoud Hakamian
iran protests retirees pensioners shush june 25, 2023
Retirees and pensioners of the Iranian regime's Social Security Organization hold protest rally in Shush—June 25, 2023

Retirees and pensioners of the Iranian regime’s Social Security Organization and the telecommunications industry held protest rallies in several cities across the country on Sunday and Monday, as their living conditions continue to deteriorate under the corrupt rule of the mullahs. Rallies were reported in Tehran, Isfahan, Ahvaz, Sanandaj, Tabriz, Kermanshah, Arak, Shiraz, Shahr-e Kord, Sari, Bandar Abbas, Shush, and Shushtar.

On Monday, retirees of the telecom industry organized protests in several cities. In Isfahan, the retirees said, In Isfahan, the retirees addressed different regime officials and organs and said, “We will not stop our weekly gatherings until we get our legal rights.”

In the past few years, retirees across Iran have been protesting their deteriorating living conditions, especially as the government refuses to adjust their pensions based on the inflation rate and fluctuations in the price of the rial, Iran’s national currency. The price of most basic goods have spiked severalfold while pensioners continue to receive the same stipends as before.

In Ahvaz, the retirees were chanting, “Enough with the promises, our tables are empty!” They also called for regime officials to resign because of their incompetence and dithering on meeting the demands of the retirees.

In Tabriz, the retirees of the telecom industry called for the implementation of a law that was passed in 2010 and would increase their pensions.

For several years regime officials have been making promises to implement the law for adjusting pensions. But as they continue to dither and delay, the lives of pensioners, who rely solely on government stipends, continue to spiral into poverty.

Also on Monday, the workers of Haft Tappeh Sugarcane Agro-Industry Company held rallies in Shush, southwest Iran, protesting delays in implementing the job-ranking law that would provide them better wages and working conditions.

The workers of Haft Tappeh have been protesting for their rights and wages for several years. Regime officials have mostly ignored their demands and on some occasions responded with force, arrested workers and dismissing them from work.

On Sunday, protests were organized by pensioners of the regime’s Social Security Organization. In Kermanshah, western Iran, protesters were chanting, “We will not stop until we get our rights!”

In Shush, southwest Iran, retirees of the Social Security Organization slammed the regime for destroying the country’s economy through its policies. “Disastrous inflation is ruling over the market!” the protesters were chanting, while expressing their determination to continue their protests: “Retirees will die but won’t accept disgrace!”

In Shushtar, the retirees were chanting, “Enough with the promises, our tables are empty!”

The Social Security Organization and retirement funds have become the center of much tension recently. Government officials are constantly warning about funds being emptied of creditor deposits and the potential for more intense protests happening in the future.

On June 24, the employees of the Social Security Organization held a protest rally in front of the offices of the Organization in Tehran to protest low wages.

On the same day, Saeed Hajarian, a former torturer who has rebranded himself as a reformist, warned that the critical situation of retirement funds along with other problems such as the water crisis, brain drain, and capital escape, are driving the society toward another explosion.

Also on Sunday, employees of the state-run Saham-e Edalat Cooperative gathered in Tehran to protest unpaid wages, low salaries, and lack of job security.

In Isfahan, retirees of Iran’s steel industry held a rally, protesting low pensions, bad healthcare, and poor living conditions.

Protests rallies continue as people throughout Iran hold the mullahs’ Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei responsible for their miseries, while also condemning the oppressive the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and paramilitary Basij units, alongside other security units that are on the ground suppressing the peaceful demonstrators.

The latest round of nationwide protests began in Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini. Mahsa (Zhina) Amini, a 22-year-old woman from the city of Saqqez in Kurdistan Province, western Iran, who traveled to Tehran with her family, was arrested on Tuesday, September 13, 2022, at the entry of Haqqani Highway by the regime’s so-called “Guidance Patrol” and transferred to the “Moral Security” agency.

She was brutally beaten by the morality police and died of her wounds in a Tehran hospital on September 16. The event triggered protests that quickly spread across Iran and rekindled the people’s desire to overthrow the regime.

Protests that began in September expanded to at least 282 cities. Over 750 people have been killed and more than 30,000 are arrested by the regime’s forces, according to sources of Iranian opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). The names of 675 killed protesters have been published by the PMOI/MEK. People continue to take to streets despite the regime’s repressive measures and new wave of executions.

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Mahmoud Hakamian
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