Iraq: Teachers threaten to protest over poor living conditions

Thousands of Iraqi teachers yesterday threatened to launch an open-ended protest in 15 provinces “if the government does not improve our [teachers] living conditions”.

Demonstrating outside the Ministry of Finance in the capital Baghdad, teachers from about 14 provinces called on the central government and the ministry to pay outstanding salaries as well as improve their living conditions.

The protesters also demanded government deductions to their salaries be halted.

Kamel Abdul Karim Murad, a teacher from the southern city of Babylon, told the Anadolu Agency: “The demonstration is the first-ever to bring together teachers from around the country calling for teachers’ rights that have been neglected over the past few years.”

“We recently handed over our demands to the government but received nothing from them,” Murad stressed.

“If the federal government does not respond to our demands, we will resort to an open-ended sit-in and a general strike,” he warned.

The Iraqi civil servants attempted to storm the ministry but security forces prevented them from getting inside.

Public schools in Iraq’s Nineveh province were reopened last year after Daesh was ousted from the area, but the salaries of teaching staff have not yet been paid. The Iraqi government recently said that it “is rigorously checking the lists of names”.