A demonstration by disabled people and managers of rehabilitation centers in Tehran on March 17, 2023
Security forces have attacked and beaten up a group of people with disabilities who gathered Saturday outside Iran’s Planning and Budget Organization in Tehran to protest their poor living condition.
This was the third time in the past month that disabled people and managers of rehabilitation centers have protested to hardships and the government's failure to pay pensions.
According to reports, the security officers tore the banners held by protesters and beat them up while they were chanting slogans to press for assistance that should have been paid earlier.
It came after the Supreme Association for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled, the Center for Positive Life and the Campaign for the Disabled issued a joint call for a sit-in in front of the organization on Saturday.
Similar protest gatherings were staged in other cities in the past weeks. On March 2, a group of people with disabilities in Mashhad gathered outside the local Rehabilitation Department to protest inattention to their demands.
Amid a vast range of economic and social crises, the people with disabilities are quickly becoming the most voiceless minority in Iran and are increasingly being pushed to the margins.
In 2021, the Ministry of Labor published a report saying that out of a population of 80 million in Iran, there are more than 1.7 million people with disabilities who require additional help.