Behind the Headlines/December 19

Jamshid Chalangi:

In tonight’s program of Behind the Headlines we will look at the following stories:

The cost of living in Iran is rising and rising while at the same time corruption among the regime’s officials is rampant;

What are the effects of the current sanctions on ordinary Iranians’ lives?

The Gonabadi Dervishes of Iran issue a stamen on their condition under the regimes’ repressive measures.

Our gusts tonight are Heshmatullah Tabarzadi and Mehdi Khazali.

Heshmatullah Tabarzadi:

The protest movement among Iran’s working class people is continuing because forty years after the establishment of the Islamic republic all aspects of corruption and poverty in our society have burst into open at once.

People are unemployed, hungry and do not even have the rights to protest against all these injustices that are the reflection of the regime’s actions and policies.

They have squandered our resources and dollars in Yemen, Iraq and Syria and nothing has been left for the Iranian people. The state is simply bankrupt and does not have any money to give to the workers. Instead it crackdowns on them.

Mehdi Khazali:

I think even dictatorial regimes also need some kind calm and respite for themselves to survive. The striking workers return home empty handed and hungry every single day and you cannot crackdown on them all the time.

The main reason for the spread of poverty in our country is the banking system and the government’s irrational economic policies.
So far they have been relying on the oil revenue to feed the people but even that source of income for the country is now drying up and the next year will bring more miseries for the nation.