Shortly after the May Day crackdown on Iranian workers’ rallies, teachers organised gatherings to celebrate National Teachers’ Day on 4 May. The teacher association TTA invited its members to gather in front of the Education Ministry in Tehran and in front of the Education Department offices in the provinces. In Tehran, over 100 teachers showed up for the meeting. Police officers in plain clothes and in uniform patrolled the area before the gathering, attempting to compel the teachers to leave. When the teachers resisted, the police assaulted and beat them.
The teachers also resisted the police’s attempts to make arrests, but eventually the police managed to arrest Rasoul Bodaghi and Khatound Badpar, members of the TTA in Tehran, as well as Ali Alami from Islamshahr. They were detained for 26 hours in the police station. Bodaghi had been sentenced to a two-year suspended prison term after his participation in teachers’ protests in 2007, and the new detention made the authorities decide that his prison sentence had to be enforced. Bodaghi remained in the Evin prison at the end of the year, but his case file has been submitted to the public prosecutor.