Expansion of Market Strike and Continuation of Retirees’ Protests; A Number of Kazerun Merchants Close Their Shops

While some reports indicate confusion among security and police forces in suppressing the market merchants’ protests, a video from the Kazerun strikes shows a police officer speaking to the gathered merchants, saying that “closing the market does not cure our pain,” adding “we are all under pressure” and “a situation has arisen where the problems you have, we all have as well, and we are also displeased and dissatisfied with what has happened, and the only way to save ourselves is our unity.”

These statements by a police command officer regarding “unity” to persuade merchants to end the strike come as protesters at Jumhuri Square and Amin Street in Tehran yesterday called with the slogan “Close it, close it, we are all together,” for other merchants to join the strike.

The expansion of the market merchants’ strike to Kazerun comes as dollar prices continue to rise. Based on reports from the Bonbast website, which announces exchange rates and gold prices in Iran’s market, the selling rate of one US dollar in Iran’s market at the time this report was prepared reached 33,000 tomans, and each Bahar Azadi gold coin was selling for 15 million and 400,000 tomans.

In addition to the strike by merchants and shopkeepers, on Monday, June 13, protests by retirees and pensioners, as well as defrauded investors, continued. Among the gatherings were those of defrauded investors of Azerbaijan Motor Industry Company, preschool teachers in Khuzestan, and also gatherings of retirees in at least the cities of Bandar Abbas, Dorud, Sarbander, and Ahvaz.

In Ahvaz, protesting retirees held a march chanting “Our beggar’s bowl is blessed by you,” “How long will we be humiliated, either death or life,” “Neither parliament nor government think of the people,” and “Retired person, shout, cry out for your rights.”