🗣Your story: Living under political repression and military tensions — Wednesday, 18 Shahrivar

🔹Karim, I’m a retiree with three daughters of marriageable age. I can’t afford a sanitary pad. I took scrap fabric work from a tailor to replace it.

🔹My parents are both government employees, but with all these installments, their wages aren’t enough to make ends meet. My brother and I—17 and 15 years old—both work and get ready for school too; we can’t really help our families much.

🔹I wanted sertraline medication for anxiety, but I had to search through five pharmacies to find it. They spend all this money on armaments, but they can’t supply one medicine.

🔹A kids’ bag for pre-kindergarten at an ordinary level: 1.5 million in the Tehran market. A pencil case: 1.5 million.

🔹I’m a formal employee at one of the governorates’ offices. With a master’s degree and 25 years of service, I receive 30 million tomans. My pay runs out in the first week of the month. Most Ministry of Interior employees are protesting the very low salaries and are furious at the incompetence of the Minister of Interior and the Development Deputy of the minister.

🔹For my daughter, I bought the usual basic stationery required for a fourth-grade elementary student, three million tomans. Honestly, where are we supposed to get it from? Hey, flag-waving ignoramus—where do you buy from? Probably your salary comes from somewhere else.

🔹After 30 years of service in the hot southern regions, I retired. Now I’m left with enough for a meal for my family.

🔹I bought three kilos of meat and one kilo of ground meat for 9 million and 340 thousand tomans; out of fear that I might have a stroke in my sleep, I didn’t sleep from last night until morning.