Latest Status of Detained Workers at ‘Haft Tappeh Sugar Cane Company’, Interview with a Dismissed Worker

The seventeenth day of protests by workers at Haft Tappeh Sugar Cane Company continues, while despite the release of 15 protesting workers by the Islamic Republic’s security and law enforcement authorities, 4 workers and one student and civil activist remain in detention.

Ali Najati, a dismissed worker and member of the board of directors of the Haft Tappeh Sugar Cane Workers’ Syndicate, said on November 20 in an interview with Voice of America: The number of detained individuals in the protests of workers at “Haft Tappeh Sugar Cane Company” was 20 people, fifteen of whom were released on bail around midnight on Monday, November 19, and 4 other detained workers named Esmail Bakhshi, Mohammad Khoneifer, Moslem Armand, and Seyyed Hassan Fazeli, along with Sepideh Ghollian, a student and civil activist, remain in detention, and there is no information about their detention location.

Workers at “Haft Tappeh Sugar Cane Company” began a strike starting November 5 in protest over the non-payment of more than three months of overdue wages. The protesters believe that the private sector employer is incapable of managing the factory and that the workers’ council can run the Haft Tappeh Sugar Cane complex better than the employer.

Ali Najati said in an interview with Voice of America: Farzaneh Zilabi, the lawyer for workers of “Haft Tappeh Sugar Cane Company” who has been representing the Haft Tappeh workers’ case for nearly a year, was told when referring to court and meeting with judicial authorities that her name is not on the list of lawyers approved by the judiciary.