Teachers’ Statement on School Fire in Zahedan: Hold Corrupt Officials Accountable

A group of teachers, in protest of the lack of safe and standard schools in Iran, issued a statement calling for the trial of those responsible for the recent tragic school fire in Zahedan.

Teachers issued a statement in which they expressed condolences to the families of students killed in the school fire in Zahedan, protested the lack of safe and standard schools in the country, and called for action against those responsible for this tragic incident.

The Osve Hasaneh private girls’ kindergarten and elementary school in Zahedan caught fire at 9 a.m. on December 18. Iranian domestic media reported that the cause of the fire was the use of an oil lamp to heat one of the classrooms.

As a result of this incident, Mona Khosrowparvast, Saba Arabi, Yekta Mirshekari, and Maryam Nokandi, four first-grade elementary school students, died from severe burns.

Following this incident, a group of teachers issued a statement that has been signed by over 1,400 people so far, declaring: “The fire that is burning the lives of our loved ones from Shinabad to Zahedan today is the product of years of neglect of education by these very factions of power that take turns holding power. It is the result of the actions of all factions of the ruling system. It is the result of the actions of those who have completely privatized all pre-school centers and are trying to extend their anti-educational and monetization policies to the rest of the public education sector.”

Also, in another section of this statement, referring to the recent suppression and arrest of teachers in Iran, it was written about the Zahedan school fire incident: “Today, when incompetent officials need to be brought to trial, the teacher and principal of Osve Hasaneh school are arrested to cover up the matter.”

According to this statement, teachers have been demanding an increase in the budget and share of education and training since 2016 with 140,000 signatures to secure schools, and have repeatedly announced their demands to the government, parliament, and the judiciary.

The signatories of the recent statement called for the trial of those responsible for the tragic Zahedan school fire and declared that solutions such as “covering up problems,” “fabricating cases,” and “intimidating” and “imprisoning” justice-seeking teachers are not the solution. “It is time to audit the files of guilty and corrupt officials.”

School fires in Iran are not unprecedented. Previously, unsafe heating devices in Iranian schools have caused incidents.

In December 2012, a girls’ elementary school in the village of Shinabad in Piranshahr, located in West Azerbaijan Province, caught fire. In that incident, two of the 29 girl students who suffered burns died. Twelve others suffered serious and permanent physical and psychological consequences. A year before that, three students died in a fire at a girls’ high school dormitory in Chabahar.

Iran’s education minister said last year that more than 40 percent of schools in the country do not have safe heating systems.

Source: Voice of America