TEHRAN, Jan 26: Clashes erupted on Saturday morning between Iranian riot police and teachers near the presidential offices in Tehran, and about a dozen were arrested.

Hundreds of teachers were holding a demonstration to protest for higher salaries when they were confronted by the police, who ordered them to break up the banned rally and attacked a group of about 20 of them.

A group of about a dozen was arrested and forced into police cars near the University of Tehran after they marched from the presidentiual offices where the clashes took place.

During the clashes the police struck some the teachers, including several women, with batons.

The clashes came just two days after President Mohammad Khatami named a commission to look into the complaints of the country’s teachers, who have been demonstrating in their thousands for better pay and conditions.

Teachers have been protesting in Tehran and in the provinces in recent weeks for better treatment, and some 10,000 turned out on Tuesday outside the parliament in Tehran, defying a police ban.

Organizers had said more protests were planned at the offices of Khatami and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran’s two million teachers earn an average monthly salary of between 130 and 190 dollars, on top of state assistance for housing. However, many of them earn less and are forced to take another job on the side.

They also say there are wide disparities and “discrimination”, notably with regard to those who work in privileged areas and those in poorer areas.—AFP