Workers Continue Protests Despite Hassan Rouhani’s Advice

Workers at Qazvin’s meter manufacturing company gathered in front of the office of the city’s Friday Prayer leader. However, Hassan Rouhani advised workers to solve their problems through elections. Labor activists said they no longer have any hope in government institutions to resolve their issues. 

The ILNA news agency reported on Thursday, September 21 (September 12) about the gathering of Qazvin meter manufacturing workers in front of the office of the city’s Friday Prayer leader. These workers protested for the nth time in the past few weeks and asked provincial authorities to address the situation of meter manufacturing.

Workers’ representatives stated that since 2017, each worker is owed nearly 10 million tomans, and the judiciary has issued a ruling for the payment of these claims. Workers’ representatives also said: “This year too, after working four months without wages, they locked and chained the company and said we have no raw materials!”

Rouhani: Workers Should Obtain Their Demands Through Elections

Workers’ protests continue despite maximum pressure on them, including the issuance of severe prison sentences against their representatives.

Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s president, according to many labor and civil activists, has remained silent on workers’ demands and the severe sentences issued by the Revolutionary Court against their representatives. On Wednesday, September 20, without referring to workers’ protests and the severe prison sentences against their representatives, Rouhani said: “Workers and women who have any problem can obtain it through elections.”

Rouhani added that the main way to secure workers’ and women’s rights is through elections. He emphasized that workers and women have no way other than elections to obtain their rights and demands. 

Iran’s president suggested that criticism and speaking have no problem, but the main way to victory and achieving more rights is through elections.

A member of the “Free Union of Iranian Workers” told Deutsche Welle regarding Hassan Rouhani’s advice: “Workers have no hope in officials to solve their problems, and Rouhani gave this advice out of fear of workers’ protests on the eve of elections so that workers do not take to the streets. Because the last months of the year are months of severe labor crises, and in most organizations, due to accumulated demands and the approach of year-end, protests become more intense, and Rouhani, out of fear of inability to control these protests during elections, gave moral advice; otherwise, he himself knows that no worker has hope in his solutions and his team.”

Zibakalamwrites: Rouhani Must Break the Silence

Sadegh Zibakalam, a faculty member of Tehran University and a reformist political activist in Iran, has also asked Rouhani through an open letter to “break the silence.”

Zibakalam, in a conversation with Deutsche Welle, while referring to Rouhani’s comments regarding “obtaining demands through elections,” said: “Unfortunately, Mr. Rouhani has effectively lost his social base. In other words, Mr. Rouhani no longer has the 24 million votes that he received 25 months ago, and I don’t think if elections were held tomorrow, even 2 million 400 thousand people would vote for him. Those 24 million votes were the honor and credibility of the reformists. Workers and women no longer listen to Rouhani. Therefore, what he says is ironic—to ask workers to come and vote in the ballot box. Rouhani has effectively lost his political and social credibility.”

Continuing his remarks about why Qazvin workers “turned to the Friday Prayer leader,” Sadegh Zibakalam explained: “Perhaps there is some concern that if they come spontaneously and independently to gather, protest, and demonstrate, severe sentences like those issued against Haft Tappeh sugar cane workers might be issued against them as well. Therefore, in a sense, workers are saying that we first rely on God and then on you. Support us so we don’t end up in detention, conviction, and Revolutionary Court trials. Workers want to say that in any case we support the appointed sector of the system, and all our resentment and grudge is against the elected sector, against Rouhani and executive officials, and perhaps in this way they want to vaccinate themselves against the actions of the judicial and security organizations that might take against them.”

Source: DW