February 18, 2022
In one of the odder protest demonstrations, employees of the Judiciary have marched to demand justice after the government refused to raise their pay.
President Raisi, who assumed his post in August, had proposed a salary hike in the last weeks of his previous job as Judiciary chairman.
But the new government he leads changed its mind and did not include the pay raise in its budget.
The Reformist daily Sharq published a video January 9 showing a protest by hundreds of men and women in front of the Majlis. “If our problem is not resolved, we will shut down the justice system!” they chanted.
Another Reformist daily, Arman Melli, reported: “Some judicial personnel organized rallies yesterday [January 8] in most of the country’s cities to protest the rejection of the plan for the Majlis to increase their salaries.”
The demonstrators held up signs with slogans declaring that “justice workers are unable to support themselves” and decrying the “hypocrisy of the government and Majlis.”
Meysam Latifi, head of the Administrative and Recruitment Affairs Organization, angered Judiciary employees with his remarks in the Majlis a few days earlier, when the pay raise was rejected. “We are concerned about the demand to raise judicial salaries because that would lead to the same thing at other agencies,” he said.