Iranian students staged street protests in Tehran on Tuesday, a day after the capital’s shopkeepers demonstrated against economic hardship and won a message of understanding from the president.
According to ILNA, a news agency associated with Iran’s labour movement, protests erupted at 10 universities across the country, including seven in Tehran that are among the country’s most prestigious.
Protests also broke out at the technology university in the central city of Isfahan and institutions in the cities of Yazd and Zanjan, Ilna and state-run IRNA reported.
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On Tuesday, security forces and riot police were deployed at major intersections in Tehran and around some universities, according to Agence France-Presse journalists, while some of the shops closed the previous day in the capital’s centre had reopened.
The student action came after Monday’s protests in central Tehran by shop owners and a day ahead of the temporary closure of banks, schools and businesses in the capital and in most provinces to save energy during the bitterly cold weather.
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The Iranian rial has dropped against the dollar and other world currencies – when the protests erupted on Sunday, the US dollar was trading at around 1.42 million rials, compared with 820,000 rials a year ago, forcing up import prices and hurting retail traders.