{"id":21047,"date":"2018-11-04T10:22:50","date_gmt":"2018-11-04T10:22:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=21047"},"modified":"2018-11-04T10:22:50","modified_gmt":"2018-11-04T10:22:50","slug":"iranians-rally-to-mark-anniversary-of-us-embassy-takeover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=21047","title":{"rendered":"Iranians rally to mark anniversary of US Embassy takeover"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nTEHRAN: Seventy-year-old Heidar Fekri has been selling industrial equipment from his small store in a Tehran bazaar since before the revolution, but for the first time he is not sure he can survive.
He means it literally: \u201cMy shelves are empty, my warehouses are empty and soon I will have to close the doors. This has been my entire life \u2014 I won\u2019t survive long after the doors close.\u201d
Iran\u2019s economy had plenty of problems even before US President Donald Trump decided in May to abandon the 2015 nuclear deal and reimpose \u201ccrippling\u201d sanctions.
But that move exacerbated a record drop in Iran\u2019s currency, down 70 percent in the past year, and prompted an exodus of foreign firms.
Anticipation of the return of the oil embargo \u2014 due to kick in on Monday \u2014 has already plunged the country into recession and will see the economy shrink by 3.6 percent next year, says the International Monetary Fund.
For Fekri, who has been bringing in industrial pumps and drills from Europe for 47 years, the uncertainty means he has not imported anything for more than a year.
\u201cSales have dropped 90 percent compared with six months ago. The whole bazaar is suffering,\u201d he told AFP.
Almost all products in Iran \u2014 from medicines to aircraft spares to plastic bottles \u2014 is tied into the global supply chain, so the currency collapse and renewed isolation threatens every corner of society.
The government has been forced to provide food baskets to around half Iran\u2019s households as inflation soars.<\/p>\n

For the middle class, perhaps the biggest blow is psychological, as the burst of hope that accompanied the nuclear deal in 2015 \u2014 the promise of the country finally shedding its pariah status \u2014 has evaporated.
\u201cNo one knows what the Americans actually want. We did everything they wanted and it wasn\u2019t enough. It feels like bullying,\u201d said Sam Cordier, head of PGt Advertising, which represents foreign clients such as British Airways and Nestle in Tehran.
Washington says the sanctions are designed to curtail Iran\u2019s \u201cdestabilising\u201d activity in the Middle East, but many see them as an attempt to trigger a revolution.
\u201cIt\u2019s not fair for the Americans to incite violence. If this continues, all the professional businessmen with something to share through knowledge and investment will leave,\u201d said Cordier.
He was forced to sack six of his 30 staff and reduce salaries for the rest as, one by one, his foreign clients packed their bags.
\u201cI was crying every 10 minutes when I told them. These are the people who are being hurt. Many young, educated people are leaving the country. There\u2019s a massive brain-drain,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

There is plenty of hatred toward the Trump administration, but a surprising number of Iranians pin the blame on their own government for not better protecting them.
\u201cYes, America is doing bad things but they are looking out for their interests. If our state had looked out for Iran\u2019s interests, we wouldn\u2019t have the situation we have now,\u201d said Erfan Yusufi, 30, whose hip new coffee shop is struggling to cope with rising prices and falling demand.
Iran\u2019s leaders face a tricky balancing act, remaining defiant in the face of US pressure, while acknowledging the economic pain felt in the country.
\u201cAll of us understand people are suffering and under pressure,\u201d President Hassan Rouhani told parliament last weekend.
\u201cWe cannot tell our people that because of America\u2019s pressure, we cannot do anything. This answer is not acceptable.\u201d
He blamed foreign media for \u201cfilling people\u2019s minds with false propaganda\u201d about soaring prices, though Iran\u2019s own central bank says food prices rose 46.5 percent in the year to September.
For all the problems, there is little sign that Iranians want another revolution, not least because a sizeable number are still fiercely supportive of the last one.
Most others are fearful of violent unrest, cowed by the security forces or uninterested in doing the bidding of a foreign power.
There is instead a sad resignation among many young people, who often refer to themselves as the \u201cburned generation\u201d for having been denied the chance to realize their potential.
\u201cI\u2019m worried about the future,\u201d said Yusufi in his coffee shop. \u201cOur generation starts each day not knowing what will become of us.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TEHRAN: Seventy-year-old Heidar Fekri has been selling industrial equipment from his small store in a Tehran bazaar since before the revolution, but for the first time he is not sure he can survive.He means it literally: \u201cMy shelves are empty, my warehouses are empty and soon I will have to close the doors. This has…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":21048,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}