Ten Workers of Haft Tappeh Sugar Cane Company Tried in Court

Ten workers of Haft Tappeh Sugar Cane Company were tried in the Shush court.

According to a report from the Telegram channel of the Haft Tappeh Sugar Cane Company Workers’ Syndicate, these ten workers appeared in Shush court today, Wednesday, August 23rd.

The charges against these individuals are “illegal gathering” for demanding “change of management and the release of Ismail Bakhshi.” This gathering was held on April 9th of the current year.

The day before, it was announced that the court had issued a sentence of eight months suspended imprisonment and 20 lashes against seven workers of the company.

Workers of “Haft Tappeh Sugar Cane” went on strike starting November 26th of last year in protest of non-payment of more than three months of outstanding wages. The protesters believed that the private sector employer lacked the ability to manage the factory and that the workers’ council could better manage the Haft Tappeh complex than the employer.

However, security forces responded to these labor protests with violent measures.

Currently, Ismail Bakhshi, a worker at the company, civil activist Sepideh Golian, Amirhossein Mohammadi-Fard, Sanaz Elahi’ari, Asal Mohammadi, and Amir Amirqoli, members of the editorial board of the student publication “Gam,” are among the detained individuals in this case.

Previously, the Persian language account of the United States State Department criticized the detention of Iranian labor activists on International Workers’ Day (May 1st) in a Twitter message, stating: “With the expense the Islamic Republic regime has incurred in Syria, it could have paid the wages of workers in Iran.”

Source: Voice of America