Iranian teachers cry for freedom and justice

04.10.2017
By Zohair Ahmad
As the world teachers day are approaching it is disturbing to see all the gruesome news from Iran. It is a paradox that the richest region in Iran does not have enough teachers for their schools. 40% of the schools do not have teachers.

 

Iranian children school under tents 

And the regime's crimes against teachers and students continues. The former director-general of Teachers’ Trade Association, Esmail Abdi is on a hunger strike in prison, another teacher from Gilan has been sent into exile for singing in art class. The human rights violations against Iranian teachers and students are increasing and are most likely to rise even more under the mullahs, the mullahs have effectively destroyed the Iranian educational system and they are not going to rectify their errors anytime soon.

Ismail Abdi, prisoner of conscience and Secretary General of Iran’s Teachers

 The protests across the country are a clear sign of the discontent of the people, not only teachers and students but the general Iranian population. 

Teachers are protesting to get their salaries and their fund back but this is dangerous, many teachers have been arrested and tortured or sent in exile, this must stop if the regime does not follow the human rights bill they must resign from power. This inhumane anti-social regime has no place in 2017.

Teachers protest in Iran

In her message on the opening of the school year, NCRI’s president-elect Maryam Rajavi send greetings to the pupils, students and their teachers. She is wishing them a year filled with academic and scientific successes. She also expresses a hope that the new school year would be a year of advancement and uprising to topple the ruling religious dictatorship and achieve freedom. 

Mrs. Rajavi states in her message that the ruling cleric’s in Tehran is the enemy of knowledge and freedom and that the teachers and students do not compromise with the dictators. Mrs. Rajavi also commemorates the two boys who lost their lives in the fire at a recycling warehouse, they should have been in school but poverty forces children to drop out of school and start working. 

In her message, Mrs. Rajavi also addresses the plundering done by the mullah’s regime. The mullah’s and their affiliates have plundered 8 trillion Toumans from the teachers’ savings fund. The mullahs have also driven the Education Ministry’s affiliate Sarmayeh Bank into bankruptcy.She continues by stating that the most devastating policy of the schools has been an institutionalized and incessant suppression which has regressed the educational system and driven it into a deadlock. At the same time, the regime answers every protest with imprisonment and torture. 

The only way to get the Iranian educational system up and running again will be a regime change, only with the Iranian resistance at the helm school’s, teachers and students will be given the funding they need to upgrade their curriculum and schools. 

At the World teacher’s day, we will show our support for the suppressed teachers in Iran.