Merchants Reopen in Tehran, With Police Watching for More Protests
Most merchants in Tehran’s grand bazaar reopened for business on Thursday as an unusually large number of police officers were deployed around the city’s black-market money trading district, witnesses reported, a day after a crackdown on suspected speculators led to civil disturbances and a large protest march by Iranians demanding relief from the plummeting value of the currency, the rial.
Iran’s Fars News Agency reported that 16 people, described as “elements of disorder in the currency market,” had been arrested during the Wednesday protests, the first outbreak of public anger over the devalued rial and other acute economic problems that have been building in Iran for the past few years. Economists have attributed the problems to government mismanagement and the onerous Western sanctions imposed on Iran in response to its contentious nuclear program, most notably a severe restriction on the country’s ability to sell oil and its expulsion from the global banking network.
Witnesses in Tehran said there was no resumption of protests over the rial, which has fallen by about 40 percent since last week and had contributed to panic selling on the black market by Iranians worried as they watch the value of their rials evaporate.
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