‘Severe’ protests erupt in Iran after petrol price hike, main roads blocked

Several protests erutped across Iranian cities on Saturday, with many protesters blocking main roads with their cars and burning tires while chanting “Death to the dictator,” a day after the government announced a surprise decision to ration and hike the price of petrol.

One civilian was killed and other people injured in Iran’s Sirjan, the semi-official news agency ISNA said Saturday, a day after protests in the central city.

“Unfortunately someone was killed,” Sirjan’s acting governor Mohammad Mahmoudabadi said in the report, adding that the cause of the death was still unclear.

A number of protesters in Tehran blocked a main highway (the Hemmat Expressway) by turning off their car engines while chanting “Death to the dictator,” in a sign of rising anger against Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Other protesters blocked another main road in the Iranian city of Isfahan with their cars as well.

Shiraz and Sultanabad, the capital of Iran’s southern Fars province, also witnessed road closures, with some protesters burning tires. In Shiraz, Iranian protesters chanted “No Gaza. No Lebanon. I give my life for Iran,” in reference to the Iranian regime’s support for Hamas and Hezbollah.

State news agency IRNA also reported the sporadic protests that erupted in cities across Iran on Saturday.

The demonstrations were “severe” at Sirjan in central Iran as “people attacked a fuel storage warehouse in the city and tried to set fire to it,” the news agency reported.

But police intervened to prevent them.

IRNA said “scattered” protests also broke out in other cities including Mashhad, Birjand, Ahvaz, Gachsaran, Abadan, Khoramshahr, Mahshahr, Shiraz and Bandar Abbas.

They were mostly limited to blocking traffic and were over by midnight, it added.

Iran imposed petrol rationing and raised pump prices by at least 50 percent on Friday, saying the move was aimed at helping citizens in need with cash handouts.

The measure was expected to bring in 300 trillion rials ($2.55 billion) per annum, the head of the country’s Planning and Budget Organisation, Mohammad Bagher Nobakht, said on state television.