At Least Eleven Protest Gatherings Held on Sunday
11-May-2025
Category: protesters، Retirees
11 May 2025
News Category: Protests – Retirees– Laborers and Guilds
Breathing in Confinement – On Sunday, 11 May 2025, at least eleven protest gatherings took place across various parts of the country.
According to the Statistics Centre of the Prisoners’ Rights League in Iran, Breathing in Confinement, pensioners covered by Social Security staged protests or marches in Tehran, Ahvaz, Rasht, Shush, and Kermanshah. They were protesting low pensions, discrimination and inequality, poor living conditions, poverty, inflation, and the high cost of living. Their demands included pension increases, provision of welfare services, and free healthcare. Among the slogans chanted by the pensioners were:
• “From the mine to the port, workers are being killed”
• “The pensioner is awake, and fed up with discrimination”
• “Our pain is your pain — people, join us”
• “Free healthcare is our undeniable right”
• “You claim justice? Shame on you!”
• “Solidarity and unity — the cure for oppression and cruelty”
• “We are the pensioners, and we will stand by our pledge”
Steel industry pensioners in Isfahan also held a protest or march over the partial implementation of the pension equalization law and the government’s failure to respond to their demands. They called for full equalization of pensions to 90% of the salaries of employed counterparts, subject to insurance deductions (as per the Seventh Development Plan), and for the government to address their other demands. Their slogans included:
• “Hussein is their slogan, but lying and stealing is their job”
• “We want nothing but our rights — we are not asking for government handouts”
In Andimeshk, bakers held a protest over unpaid bakery subsidies and the fixed price of bread despite rising inflation.
In Arak, industrial workers from the Kheirabad Industrial Zone, and in Yazd, textile industry workers, held protests outside the governor’s office over repeated power outages.
Meanwhile, lorry drivers in Rostamabad, Gilan province, held their second day of protest. They raised concerns over the lack of diesel fuel allocations, low freight rates, and high operating costs.
Residents of the village of Karkahreg in Qasr-e Shirin staged a protest outside the county governor’s office over the lack of access to drinking water.