Following Fresh Protests by Haft Tappeh Workers; Four Labor Activists Arrested
Reports indicate that four workers from the Haft Tappeh sugarcane company were arrested by police forces following their participation in a protest gathering on Thursday, October 30th.
The Haft Tappeh Workers’ Syndicate reported that workers from various industrial departments of the Haft Tappeh company were in discussions with company management in support of colleagues whose overtime wages for the months of Tir and Mordad had not been paid, when security forces intervened and the situation escalated.
Ismail Bakhshi, a labor activist who himself had been imprisoned for several months following the Haft Tappeh protests, tweeted about the arrests, stating that security forces “raided the homes of three labor activists from Haft Tappeh, arresting Youssef Bahmani, Hamid Mombini, and Masoud Hayvaari without prior notification.”
While after months of Haft Tappeh workers’ protests their conditions remain unaddressed, Omid Asadbeigi, former CEO of Haft Tappeh sugarcane company, is the primary defendant in a case of disruption to the monetary and currency system. The indictment against him charges him with organized leadership in disrupting the country’s monetary and currency system through large-scale currency smuggling and unauthorized transactions of government currencies.
Islamic Republic authorities have used security measures against professional protests in recent years, including protests by Haft Tappeh workers, and have sentenced some protesting workers and members of the Haft Tappeh Workers’ Syndicate, including labor activist Ali Nejati, to lengthy prison sentences.
The United States has repeatedly condemned Iran’s security crackdown on workers. The U.S. State Department’s Persian language Twitter account previously announced in a post that “the Islamic Republic regime, with the money it spent in Syria, could have paid workers’ wages in Iran.”
Source: Voice of America
