Iran petrol price hike: Protests erupt over surprise rationing
Protests have erupted across Iran
after the government unexpectedly announced it was rationing petrol and
increasing its price, state media report.
Prices went up by at least 50% on Friday.The authorities have reduced heavy subsidies on petrol prices to curb the impact of US sanctions which have badly affected Iran's economy.
Iran faces stiff sanctions on oil exports after the US pulled out of a nuclear deal with world powers in 2018.
State news agency IRNA reported "severe" protests in Sirjan, central Iran, on Friday night as "people attacked a fuel storage warehouse in the city and tried to set fire to it".
One person was killed and others were injured, the semi-official ISNA news agency quoted Sirjan's governor as saying.
Protests also broke out in other cities including Mashhad, Birjand, Ahvaz, Gachsaran, Abadan, Khoramshahr, Mahshahr, Shiraz and Bandar Abbas, it added.
In Mashhad, Iran's second largest city, dozens of angry demonstrators blocked roads by abandoning their cars in traffic, AP news agency reported citing Iranian state media.
Videos posted online purportedly showed motorists in the capital, Tehran, stopping traffic on the Imam Ali Highway and chanting for the police to support them.
Another clip show what appeared to be a roadblock across the Tehran-Karaj motorway, hit by the season's first heavy snowfall.
Under the new measures, each motorist is allowed to buy 60 litres (13 gallons) of petrol a month at 15,000 rials ($0.13; £0.10) a litre. Each additional litre then costs 30,000 rials.
Previously, drivers were allowed up to 250 litres at 10,000 rials per litre, AP reported.
Cars could be seen queuing at a petrol station in Tehran on Friday
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