Teachers' statement on the primary school fire in Zahedan: Get to the case of corrupt officials
A group of teachers, protesting the lack of safe and standard schools in Iran, issued a statement calling for the prosecution of the main perpetrators of the recent Zahedan school fire disaster.
Teachers issued a statement expressing their sympathy for the families of the students who died in the school fire in Zahedan, protesting the lack of safe and standard schools in the country, and calling for action against the main perpetrators of this catastrophic incident.
The Asveh Hasaneh Girls' Preschool and Primary School in Zahedan caught fire at 9:00 AM on December 17. Iranian media reported that the cause of the fire was the use of a kerosene lamp to heat one of the classrooms.
As a result of this incident, four first grade elementary school students, Mona Khosroparast, Saba Arabi, Yekta Mirshekar, and Maryam Nokandi, lost their lives due to severe burns.
Following this incident, a group of teachers issued a statement that has been signed by more than 1,400 people so far, declaring: "The fire that is burning the lives of our loved ones from Shin Abad to Zahedan today is the result of years of neglect of education by the same power factions that take turns in power. It is the result of the actions of all factions of the government. It is the result of the actions of those who have privatized 100 percent of preschool centers and are trying to extend their anti-education and monetization policies to the rest of the public education sector."
Another part of the statement, referring to the recent repression and arrest of teachers in Iran, states about the Zahedan school fire incident: "Today, while it is necessary to bring incompetent officials to justice, the teacher and principal of Osveh Hasaneh School are being arrested to clear the record."
According to this statement, since 2016, teachers have been demanding an increase in the budget and the share of education and training in order to make schools safer, with 140,000 signatures, and have repeatedly announced their demands to the government, parliament, and the judiciary.
The signatories of the recent statement called for the prosecution of the main perpetrators of the Zahedan school fire disaster, and declared that the solution to "cover up the problems," "create cases," and "intimidate" and "imprison" teachers who seek justice is not the solution. "The time has come to hold an audit of the case of the wrongdoers and corrupt officials."
A school fire is not unprecedented in Iran. Unsafe heating devices have caused accidents in schools in Iran before.
In December 2012, a girls’ primary school in the village of Shin-Abad in Piranshahr, West Azerbaijan Province, caught fire. Two of the 29 female students who suffered burns died in the incident. Twelve others suffered serious and lasting physical and mental injuries. A year earlier, three students died in a fire in a girls’ high school dormitory in Chabahar.
Last year, Iran's Minister of Education announced that more than 40 percent of schools in the country do not have safe heating systems.
Source: Voice of America
