Ghouta teachers demand wages

MONEY TEACHES: Dozens of teachers and students organized a protest in East Ghouta Saturday to demand the Syrian interim government provide them with financial support amidst a crippling regime blockade, reported pro-opposition news agency Siraj Press.

“The criminal regime is killing us with bullets and you are killing us by cutting the support from us [in] East Ghouta,” reads the sign above carried by a protester.

“I am a teacher and I want to live,” says another sign.

East Ghouta, the sprawling opposition-controlled suburbs located east of Damascus, has been under regime attack for more two years, with some places inside completely encircled by regime forces for nearly as long. 

The demonstration comes in the wake of a series of other popular protests in East Ghouta over the past month demanding greater accountability from Jaysh al-Islam–the dominant rebel group in the area–over rapidly rising food prices and arbitrary imprisonments.

The protesters they say that they have not been paid their salaries since the beginning of the school year three months ago.

“We have…not received a single lira. Everyone knows that we live under a blockade as [demonstrated] by the [steep] rise in food prices,” one of the teachers said.

“I have four children and I want to feed them. If they close the schools because of this protest, we will search for other work so we can feed our children.”

The demonstration is also part of the #BigPrison media campaign that opposition activists launched last week to raise awareness about the human rights violations that take place in rebel-held Ghouta.

-December 12, 2014

-Photo courtesy of Al-Ghouta Now

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