As the Iranian rial plunged to a record low against the US dollar, several merchants at a shopping center in the capital Tehran took to the streets to protest the gap between the official and unofficial market rates. “Aladdin Shopping Center” merchants converged on Jomhuri Street to voice their anger, amid fears over a return of US sanctions following President Donald Trump’s withdrawal in May from the 2015 deal on Iran’s nuclear program. News agencies and websites posted videos of merchants as they protested the rapid depreciation of the rial by shutting down their shops on Sunday They denounced the rise in the price of the dollar, calling on the Iranian authorities to end regional interference, particularly in Syria, and turn their attention to Iran’s internal affairs. The police intervened to disperse the protesters, reported the Jamaran news website. Information and Communications Technology Minister Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi said on Twitter that he visited the protesting merchants after a cabinet session. “I will try to help provide hard currency for (mobile) equipment (imports),” Azari-Jahromi wrote, adding: “The merchants’ activity has now gone back to normal.” Reuters quoted Bonbast.com, which tracks unofficial market, as saying the dollar was being offered for as much as 87,000 rials, compared to around 75,500 on Thursday, the last trading day before Iran’s weekend. ISNA news agency said the dollar had climbed to 87,000 rials on the black market on Sunday from about 74,000 before the weekend. Several Iranian websites carried similar reports, however, other news agencies said the dollar exceeded 90,000 rials. ISNA quoted dollar traders and sellers as saying the price hike in informal markets was caused by the government and the central banks failure to pump the dollar in the past few days. Iran’s currency has been sliding for months because of a weak economy, financial difficulties at local banks and heavy demand for dollars among Iranians, who fear Washington’s pullout from the nuclear deal and renewed sanctions that could shrink the country’s exports of oil and other goods. Some of the US sanctions against Iran take effect after a 90-day “wind-down” period ending on August 6, and the rest of the sanctions, mostly targeting the petroleum sector, will begin after a 180-day “wind-down” period ending on November 4. Before Trump’s announcement of the US withdrawal in early May, the rial weakened from around 65,000 rials and from 42,890 at the end of last year. Such a decline threatens to boost inflation, hurt living standards and reduce the ability of Iranians to travel abroad. In an effort to halt the slide, Iranian authorities announced in April that they were unifying the dollar’s official and black market exchange rates at a single level of 42,000, and banning any trade at other rates. However, this measure did not deter the unofficial market because authorities have been supplying much less hard currency through official channels than consumers are demanding. Free market trade simply went underground. Traders say all that has happened is that the free market has become a secret. Government spokesman Mohammad Reza Nobkhat said on Saturday that the government has since mid-March pumped 9.7 billion dollars to contain the crisis.