Riots in Iran
The Telegraph is reporting widespread protests, including rioting and the burning of cars and gas stations (by "youths", just as it is reported when discussing France, incidentally) over the government's sudden imposition of gasoline rationing. Ahmadinejad's regime announced the strict controls three hours before they were put into effect.
Angry Iranians have torched petrol stations in protests against the sudden imposition of fuel rationing in one of the world’s most oil rich nations.
The rationing was announced on Tuesday only three hours before it was due to begin at midnight, leading to long queues at service stations as Iranians rushed out to fill up before the clampdown kicked in.
In the capital, youths set a car and petrol pumps ablaze at a station in the residential Pounak area of northwestern Tehran, throwing stones and shouting angry slogans denouncing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who came to power in an election based largely on his promises to improve the Islamic republic’s faltering economy.
He has been facing growing criticisms over his economic policies, which a group of economists claimed earlier this month were fuelling inflation and hurting the poor.
The Iranian government had been planning for weeks to implement rationing, which was supposed to begin May 21, but has repeatedly held off from making the move.
In a country where citizens are used to having cheap and plentiful gas the issue is a sensitive one.
Lines of more than a half a mile long snaked out of some stations in Tehran, while riot police were in some streets to disperse the demonstrators.
Iran is pouring money into its nuclear weapons program and financing proxy wars all over the region. The money only goes so far and something had to give. Ahmadinejad chose to shaft his own people.
By Quilly Mammoth, Wednesday, 27 June , 2007 @ 11:38 am
All it would take is one careless smoker at Iran’s sole refinery………
By feeblemind, Wednesday, 27 June , 2007 @ 12:34 pm
Riots over rationed gas in Iran, inflation at 20-30%, high unemployment. This is all good news is it not?
By Quilly Mammoth, Wednesday, 27 June , 2007 @ 9:10 pm
You do know it is all the fault of the Zionist Regime…don’t you?