Iranian pensioners protested in 28 cities on Sunday, March 7, 2021, over the regime’s corrupt economic policies that have left retirees in poverty.

At their seventh nationwide protest since the start of the year, the retirees chanted:

• “The result of the government’s work, looting the nation’s money”
• “Our country is sitting on treasure, but the retired are living in misery”
• “Retirees are awake and they hate injustice”
• “Our enemy is right here; they are lying that it is America.”

During the first six protests, the regime refrained from outright violence against pensioners and did not arrest them, fearing the optics and relying on threats instead, but this week they sent security forces in and attempted to attack and arrest.

The guards and plainclothes agents were met with resistance by the retirees and, in most cases, had to stop.

As protests grow despite the pandemic, it shows how anger is bubbling at the surface across the country. As more and more people are pushed into poverty, to the point where people are cutting meat and fruit from their shopping lists and selling their children, this can only  mean that more protests are coming.

Of course, it would be completely acceptable to ask how, in a country that has $770 billion in potential reserves of natural resources, people are allowed to be in poverty and why the state hasn’t stepped in to help them. After all, people have to pay for bread in installments and scavenge dumpsites, while the regime leaders are living in luxury.

The truth is that it was designed that way, so we should not be surprised if wages can’t last a week and employers cannot afford to pay workers.

The Iranian Resistance wrote: “For three months, the mullahs’ regime has been witnessing that even the coronavirus outbreak is not preventing social protests. The people feel the struggle with growing poverty and hunger threatens their lives far more than the virus… Now the regime is at a crossroads: to either suppress the protests or ignore them. Suppressing protests will result in more radicalized protest movement…that will dwarf the protests of January 2018 and November 2019.”

They said that the regime is at a dead end with every option leading to further protests and the mullahs’ overthrow. When Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei shed crocodile tears for the people in poverty last week,  he was actually crying for himself and the little time he has left in power.