Teachers Call For Nationwide Protests After Khamenei Fails To Address School Attacks
Iranian teachers have called for further protests just hours after the Supreme Leader failed to address nationwide school poisonings.
Iranian teachers have called for further protests just hours after the Supreme Leader failed to address nationwide school poisonings.
Khamenei had been speaking at an event for the Islamic Republic’s National Teachers’ Day with a cherry picked group of teachers. During the meeting, Khamenei discussed the country’s education system but fell short of even mentioning the months of gas attacks against the schools across Iran which have left thousands of schoolgirls sick and hospitalized.
Instead of addressing one of the biggest human rights violations of recent months, affecting over 130 schools, Khamenei talked about pushing the regime’s extremist brand of Islam in the country’s education system.
He voiced the necessity of keeping schools under state control, encouraging students to attend religious ceremonies at mosques and praised the old generation of Iranian teachers who made students go to war with Iraq from 1980 to 1988. According to Khamenei's statistics, this led to “the martyrdom of 36,000 students”.
The Coordination Council of Iranian Teachers' Trade Associations reacted quickly and issued an outraged statement on Tuesday, calling on teachers and educators to protest outside Education Ministry branches across the country and outside the parliament in Tehran on Tuesday..
The rallies were scheduled for May 9 as a tribute to Jabbar Baghcheban, also known as Mirza Jabbar Asgarzadeh, an Iranian inventor and educator born on May 9, 1886, who established the first Iranian kindergarten and the first deaf school.
The council stressed the necessity of ending the "dominance of the ruling totalitarian ideology" in Iranian schools, claiming the current incompetent managers of the educational system should be replaced by those educated under more modern, secular pedagogy.
In addition to their usual demands such as better salaries and working conditions, the teachers’ council reiterated that Iran’s education system will not improve without a fundamental change.
"Without a deep and critical review of the intellectual and political foundations of the ruling ideology; without critical restructuring in school governance and management practices; without accepting the individual, cultural and social differences of students; … and without fundamental changes in the existing and failed mechanisms of school administration, the education system in the country will not bear fruits,” read their statement.
They also voiced support for the recent wave of protests by teachers and families of students who have been victims of mysterious chemical attacks on schools, which have been going on for at least six months.
While Khamenei was delivering his speech, more videos surfaced on social media of at least six schools that were attacked by an unknown chemical that has affected scores of mostly girls’ schools, since November.
In the videos, parents are seen anxiously comforting their children suffering from symptoms such as nausea and dizziness, while other videos showed ambulances taking students to hospital. Similar attacks were also reported both a day before Khamenei’s speech and a day after it on Monday and Wednesday.
The attacks have been condemned on the global stage by the likes of the UN and US, with calls for the regime to find the culprits, though it is unlikely attacks of such a scale could be perpetrated without the tacit approval of Tehran.
One of the schools in the Kurdish-majority of Sanandaj was raided by security forces after the latest attack, not to arrest the assailants but to beat the students and parents who showed anger at the regime’s handling of the issue.
In one video showing people running with panic through the corridors of a hospital, a woman is heard saying the girl filmed was hit on the head with a baton. Over 500 civilians have died at the hands of such brutality since protests against the regime began in September, with thousands more imprisoned.
While media in Iran mainly dealt with Tehran's benefit from 12 years of fighting in Syria, reports from the region were mainly factual and often based on Iranian agencies' output.
Raisi's visit to Damascus is the first such visit by an Iranian President since the start of war in Syria 12 years ago.
Khabar Online quoting Israeli media said that Israel is worried about Raisi's visit to Syria. The website also quoted former diplomat and an Iranian expert on the Middle East Sabah Zanganeh, a political figure close to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, as saying that Iran has supported Syria's territorial integrity and Syrian people's security during the past 12 years.
Iran intervened in Syria as soon unrest began in 2011 and reportedly played a major role in pushing the Assad regime to use overwhelming military force against the opposition.
Zanganeh reiterated Iranian regime’s rhetoric that insecurity in Syria can also affect Iran's security. Therefore, it is essential that the two countries' officials cooperate and coordinate their efforts about dealing with terrorism in the region which hinders trade with Iran via Syria's Mediterranean ports, a flimsy excuse given the fact that major ports remain under government control. Zanganeh's statement contradicted Iran's official claims about having ended terrorism in Syria.
Zanganeh generally described the purpose of Raisi's visit as discussing regional issues. Khabar Online noted that the foreign ministers of Egypt and Saudi Arabia have already visited Damascus, and Raisi's visit can facilitate talks between Damascus and Riyadh.
In a rather pessimistic report, Etemad Online quoted former senior diplomat Ebrahim Rahimpour as warning that Iran should stay alert to reap the benefits of its long and costly support for Assad’s regime. He also argued that Assad should visit Tehran to thank Iranian officials for their help and support which has led to his survival.
He pointed out that Assad's previous visit was done secretly and some Iranian officials including former Foreign Minister Javad Zarif were kept in the dark about his visit. This time he should visit Iran in the same manner he recently visited some Persian Gulf states.
Rahimpour claimed that Iran has more influence than Russia in Syria. Meanwhile, he said that Iranian officials should not limit their foreign visits to a few countries. He was obviously mindless of the fact because of sanctions most Iranian officials cannot visit more than a handful of countries.
Rahimpour added that during Raisi's visit, Tehran should complain about Syria taking part in meetings with Russia and Turkey without Iran. He said ironically, “some of those we help, tend to forget us when their problems are solved.”
Among the media in the region, Al-Ahram's report in Egypt was totally based on the output of Iranian official news agency IRNA. The report called the visit "very important" without saying why. It also used Iran's rhetoric which called Raisi "Doctor Raisi."
Syria's official news agency SANA featured a very brief report with formulaic sentences such Raisi will be accompanied by " a high-ranking political and economic ministerial delegation," and that he will discuss with Assad "positive developments in the region."
London-based Asharq al-Awsat reported about Iran's plans to invest in the energy sector in Syria and quoted Arabic sources as saying that Syria is looking forward to an agreement with Iran in the areas of energy and electricity.
However, the fact is that Iran is in a financial crisis and unable to invest even in its own energy sector, starved of money and technology.
In her campaign, coinciding with World Press Freedom Day, she called upon the UK to sponsor the resolution in a bid to recognize the threats made to Iran International journalists who in February, were forced to evacuate the London offices and relocate to Washington after being warned that authorities could no longer protect them from threats originating with Iranian agents.
"The UK government actually asked one of the biggest [broadcasters], Iran International TV, to stop its activities and to move from the UK. It was advice. So, I want to call on you, the UK government … and the General Assembly to pass this [resolution]," Alinejad told delegations in attendance in the General Assembly Hall.
The appeal comes just days after it was revealed that Iran is the world’s second worst country, only after China, for the repression and imprisonment of journalists.
Worsened by revolutionary unrest, Iran jailed three times the number of writers in 2022 than 2021 as it cracked down on voices of dissent. The findings, from PEN America’s latest Freedom To Write Index, showed the extent of oppression haunting the country’s writers and journalists, heightened after the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September.
Alinejad, who was forced into exile in 2009, is an outspoken critic of the Islamic Republic, and the founder of a campaign against gender apartheid practices in that country, where women who choose to appear in public without a hijab risk fines, arrest, imprisonment, and death.
In 2021, the US Department of Justice announced conspiracy charges against Iranian agents that sought to kidnap Alinejad from New York and rendition her to the Islamic Republic. Earlier this year, the Justice Department filed charges in a murder-for-hire plot directed against her by the Iranian regime.
Within Iran, the Intelligence Ministry has reportedly ordered journalists and activists to remove posts on social media about chemical attacks perpetrated against schoolgirls, and dozens of journalists have been arrested over the last seven months because they reported on nationwide anti-regime protests sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in police custody for allegedly violating the compulsory hijab laws.
Alinejad has long been a proponent for oppressed journalists who are living in fear both at home and abroad as the Iran International case proved. She said that with more than 70 journalists currently in jail in Iran, the risks continue.
She recently said: "The Islamic Republic uses the tools of the state – surveillance, intimidation, violence, and a corrupt judiciary – to browbeat people into submission, but they are failing. Even though being a journalist in Iran can land you in jail, can get you killed, can get you tortured, they are failing. But they cannot be left to fight alone.”
Some of the country’s leading voices have been severely punished in recent months including Nasrin Sotoudeh, who was threatened with being returned to jail after speaking to or writing for international media outlets; author and activist Narges Mohammadi, who bravely continued to speak out from Evin prison; and writer Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee, arrested in September.
Last week, Karin Deutsch Karlekar, PEN America’s director of Free Expression at Risk Programs, said: “Iran’s creative community—long at the forefront of fighting for free expression and human rights—was singled out as part of a broader crackdown on dissent in 2022. Alongside the dozens of writers and artists detained, the harsh sentences handed down and custodial abuse faced by some prisoners were an attempt to warn others to keep silent.”
Coinciding with international labor day, action was seen in several neighborhoods of the Iranian capital Tehran as well as the nearby city of Karaj and the central city of Esfahan (Isfahan).
Street protests -- which were held almost daily for a couple of months after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody had dwindled in recent weeks after months of protests which saw more than 500 civilians killed and around 20,000 arrested.
Protesting against poor wages and inhumane working conditions, rallies saw thousands of workers gather. More than 100 oil, gas, petrochemical and other plants across the country have been staging strikes since April 22. The regime simultaneously stepped up arrests and indictment of union activists around the industrial action.
In Esfahan, protesters chanted slogans in support of workers and political prisoners with social media videos showing people expressing support for Tomaj Salehi, a rapper who has been detained since the early days of the current wave of protests. "We have come again, the uprising continues" and "The rule of turbans is over," they chanted.
In videos that surfaced on social media from the Monday night protests, dozens of women cast off their headscarves, with captions in which people made fun of the country’s head of police, who keeps warning hijab rebels that the protests would be over soon and those who unveil will continue to be prosecuted.
Since 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was beaten to death by hijab enforcers in September sparking a nationwide revolt, the simple act of unveiling in public has become a common occurrence across Iran, and a thorn in the side of the regime hardliners who are pushing for stricter measures.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s assertion Tuesday that flouting hijab is “religiously and politically haram” has prompted officials to signal harsher crackdown on those who unveil in public.
Following Khamenei’s cue, the ministry of interior in its second statement on hijab within a week, alleged that the opposition to compulsory hijab was an enemy plot advanced by foreign intelligence services and the opposition outside Iran, who through social media are trying to use it to “create deep social divides and a divide between the people and the government.”
The unrest since Amini’s killing by the police has made it increasingly difficult to enforce the mandatory Islamic dress code which has become a symbol of opposition against clerical rule.
