{"id":12703,"date":"2018-11-18T17:29:21","date_gmt":"2018-11-18T21:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/?p=12703"},"modified":"2018-11-18T17:29:21","modified_gmt":"2018-11-18T21:29:21","slug":"iran-merchants-strikes-flare-up-in-tabriz-other-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/2018\/11\/18\/iran-merchants-strikes-flare-up-in-tabriz-other-cities\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran: Merchants Strikes Flare-up in Tabriz & Other Cities"},"content":{"rendered":"

The merchants in the city of Tabriz (northwest Iran) went on strike<\/a> on Saturday once again, closing down their shops and refusing to open for business. Shops in Tarbiat Street, and the fruits and vegetables market, as well as other parts of the city\u2019s bazaar were closed to protest high prices, shortage of goods and deteriorating economic conditions, the PMOI reported<\/a> on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Earlier, Bazaar store-owners of Tabriz\u00a0had gone on strike<\/a>\u00a0first on Wednesday, November 14, protesting skyrocketing prices, lack of goods and a decreasing number of customers.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the cities of Hamedan and Astara withnessed strikes by many shop owners who are protesting poor and deteriorating economic conditions. Similar situation was observed in the cities of Sanandaj and Maragheh.<\/p>\n

In the past months, merchants in different cities have intermittently went on strike in protest to the Iranian regime\u2019s corruption, its mishandling of the country\u2019s economy and the nosedive of the value of rial, Iran\u2019s national currency.<\/p>\n

In April,\u00a0merchants in several western provinces of Iran<\/a>\u00a0went on strike in protest to the closure of border gates and the increase in tariffs. In June,\u00a0strikes in Tehran\u2019s Grand Bazaar<\/a>\u00a0led to clashes between merchants and security forces. In the past decades, the Iranian regime has relied on the bazaar as its traditional base of support. The regime is now seeing its power dwindle as merchants and shop owners from more cities join the strikes.<\/p>\n

The strikes of merchants are happening against the backdrop of ongoing protests across the country. On Saturday, Iran\u2019s truckers entered the 17th<\/sup>\u00a0day of their\u00a0nationwide strike<\/a>\u00a0in protest to poor economic conditions. This week,\u00a0Iran\u2019s teachers also held a two-day strike<\/a>\u00a0in protesting government’s corruption and lack of funding for school and education among other demands.<\/p>\n

In December, protests erupted across the country in more than 140 cities over poverty, unemployment and government corruption. The protests soon turned into anti-government demonstrations that called for regime change in Iran. Since then, protests and strikes have been regularly flaring up in different parts of the country.<\/p>\n

The Iranian regime has tried to blame economic woes on foreign states. But the people of Iran, who have been living under the duress imposed by the mullahs regime for the past four decades, have no doubt who is responsible for the country\u2019s economic problems. In the protests, the Iranian people are calling the regime off for squandering the country\u2019s riches in fueling sectarian violence in neighboring countries and wars in Yemen and Syria.<\/p>\n

On social media, Iranian users are posting pictures and videos that are comparing the luxurious life of the ruling elites to the miseries of the ordinary people.<\/p>\n

As strikes and protests continue<\/a>, the regime of Tehran is finding itself in an inescapable impasse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The merchants in the city of Tabriz (northwest Iran) went on strike on Saturday once again, closing down their shops and refusing to open for […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":12704,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[433,5],"tags":[531,530,388,127,526,373],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12703"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12703"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12711,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12703\/revisions\/12711"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}