Iran Focus
London, 13 Nov – As the tenth day of the new round of strikes by truck drivers passed on Saturday, November 10th, Maryam Rajavi, president of the Iranian opposition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), hailed the strikers, saying that as long as Mullahs are in power, poverty, inflation, and unemployment will continue.
Protesting their dire living conditions, low freight rates, high cost of spare parts, severe insurance conditions, and so many other injustices, the truckers staged a strike earlier in the summer — June, August, and September. As well, an October strike lasted 21 days.
Now, in addition to their previous demands, drivers are calling for the release of their colleagues who were arrested during the last round of strikes.
The government attempted to prevent the strike by using various pressures and threats. But, workers across the country are rising up and making their voices heard.
For example, the Haft Tapeh sugar cane workers have continued their strike for the sixth consecutive day to protest non-payment of their claims inside the company.
As well, workers of the Ahvaz National Steel Group gathered in front of the governor’s office in the city and protested on Saturday. They chanted, “No nation has seen this much injustice; Hossein Hossein, is their slogan, theft is their pride; what did behind the scene hands have done with the factory?”
On the Line 6 project of Tehran, in front of the headquarters of the company, urban trains workers are also protesting the non-payment of their salaries.
Shopkeepers in Tehran’s 15 Khordad street bazaar protested against the high cost and lack of goods and customers, and refused to open their shops.
Farmers in the Isfahan region, continued their demonstrations and sit-ins to protest being deprived of their water rights and their living conditions. They chanted, “Lest we are humiliated!”; and “The Zayandeh Roud water is our inalienable right.”
Member of the Iran’s Assembly of Experts and representative of Khamenei, Alam-ul-Hoda, said in Mashhad on Friday, November 9th, “Over 40% inflation caused by the recession brought the economy into a ruin. … This is the situation of our workers who have become unemployed, with families they are left without food, and the miners who work in the worst case situation, they work in the mine, underground and they do not pay their daily wages.”
Mrs. Rajavi hailed the determination of the truck drivers, the deprived farmers of Isfahan, the oppressed hard-working workers of Haft Tapeh sugarcane factory and Ahvaz steel, as well as all other strikers across the country. She said, “Poverty, inflation, unemployment and corruption were brought to our country by the religious fascism, and will continue as long as this medieval dictatorship is in power.” She also called on fellow citizens, especially the youth, to support them.
