TEHRAN — Hundreds of people have taken to
the streets in cities across Iran to protest the government’s decision to raise
the prices of essential goods, state media reported on Friday.
اضافة اعلان
Earlier this week,
President Ebrahim Raisi announced
a series of measures to tackle the country’s economic woes, including changing
a subsidy system and increasing the prices of several staples including cooking
oil, chicken, and eggs.
Iran’s economy has suffered under stringent
sanctions reimposed by the
US after it unilaterally pulled out of a deal with
world powers on Iran’s nuclear program in 2018.
Official figures put inflation at around 40 percent.
Iranians reacted to the move — which took effect on
Friday — with protests in several cities over the past two days, state news
agency IRNA reported.
More than 20 people were arrested in the
southwestern cities of Dezful and Yasuj, where protesters called on authorities
to reverse their decisions.
Demonstrators in the southern city of Izeh attacked
shops and tried to set fire to a mosque, the news agency said.
Protests broke out soon after Raisi’s announcement
late Monday of changes to the subsidy system introduced by his predecessor
Hasan Rouhani in 2018, which covered several basic goods.
But he pledged that the prices of bread, petrol and
medicines would remain unchanged.
To mitigate the impact of the price increases, Raisi
said monthly payments of between $10 and $13 would be disbursed for each family
member of low-income households.
‘Horrible’
But for some residents of
Tehran, the allowance will not do much.
Azadeh, a 43 year old housewife, said the changes
were “horrible”.
“The new prices have limited my family’s purchasing
power for everything (...) prices of food items, fruits and other consumables
have risen,” she told AFP in the north of the capital.
The price of cooking oil has almost quadrupled since
Raisi’s announcement, while the price of eggs and chicken nearly doubled.
Mohammad, a 40 year old private sector employee,
said prices were rising “by the hour”.
“How can people live like this?” he asked.
Following Raisi’s announcement, people rushed to
supermarkets to stock up on goods, videos shared on social media and footage
broadcast on state television showed.
The president visited one of the main meat and
poultry distribution centres in south Tehran and a supermarket in the city
centre, his website said.
First Vice
President Mohammad Mokhber stressed that
rising prices were a global problem not limited to Iran.
“Prices in the world have changed... the situation
in the region has created problems in the prices of products and the prices of
basic goods were set accordingly,” IRNA quoted him as saying.
Iran’s economic woes have sparked several waves of
protests in recent years, most notably in November 2019 following an
unannounced hike in fuel prices.
Iranian authorities said
230 people were killed in protest-related violence but experts working for the
UN put the death toll at 400.
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