Soaring prices spark protests in northeast Iran

GVF — The northeastern city of Nishapur was the site of protests against high prices and the government’s poor handling of the economy on Monday.

A sizeable number of residents in Nishapur, a city in the province of Khorasan Razavi, gathered in the main square of the city to show their protest at the steep rise in the price of chicken. They chanted slogans such as “Nang bar gerani” (“Shame on high prices”) and “Dolat haya kon in mardomo raha kon” (“Shame on you government, let go of the people”).

No arrests or violent crackdowns were reported.

The starting point for the spontaneous march was reportedly a poultry shop that had declined to sell chicken at a subsidised price.

Not long after the discontented people had poured onto the streets, officials from the judiciary as well as the police rushed to the scene and promised to address the crowd’s concerns.

According to state-media reports, the deputy governor of Nishapur, the city’s police chief and its chief prosecutor pledged to resolve the protesters’ economic woes.

The semi-official Mehr news agency cited Hossein Shariatmadar-Tehrani, who heads the Bureau for Industry, Mine and Trade in Nishapur, as saying that “the shortage of poultry is not limited to Nishapur and the situation is the same everywhere in the province.”

Nishapur’s chief prosecutor played down the protesters’ demands and warned those who had joined the gathering. “The men and women who came here from every corner to join this ferment have chanted slogans and made comments which have been recorded and identified,” he said, adding that the “grandeur” of the people of Nishapur should prevent them from chanting slogans in the streets for “one or two chickens.”

“Indeed, anyone who hears these comments must weep at this tragedy. We didn’t participate in the [Islamic] Revolution for bread and water.”

International sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme as well as the government’s subsidy reform plan have resulted in soaring prices for basic food items and transport, making life increasingly unbearable for many ordinary Iranians.

According to a recent report by the Isna news agency, the price of chicken in some neighbourhoods in Tehran has reached 80,000 Rials (6.5 US dollars). The report, which included pictures of long queues at poultry shops, mentioned that Iran was the only country where the price of chicken had increased by 35 percent since March.

Iranians can opt for subsidised chicken (47,000 Rials), but that involves waiting in queues, sometimes for hours.

In mid-July, Iran’s police chief Esmail Ahmadi Moghaddam urged state-TV to avoid broadcasting images of people eating chicken, saying such pictures could spark social unrest, with potentially unforeseen consequences.

For his part, Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem-Shirazi recently called on Iranians not to insist on buying chick, claiming that he himself had “decided not to eat chicken” anymore.

“We see that many people are shrieking over the price of chicken. But what’s the worse that can happen if one doesn’t eat it … The overwhelming majority of doctors say that meat products don’t make for good food.”