Reported by PMOI/MEK
Iran, June 24, 2018 – With employees of the Ahvaz National Steel Group continuing their protests, Iranian regime authorities have been forced to succumb to their demands and release their arrested colleagues.
As these employees and their families rallied outside the judiciary for numerous days, the Ahvaz judiciary issued a letter on June 21st informing them of the release of the remaining five jailed employees.
Their names include:
- Karim Siahi
- Mohammad Falahi
- Sajjad Hosseinpour
- Abdulrahman Saki
- Javad Eskandari
For the third consecutive week, employees of the Ahvaz National Steel Group were seen protesting on June 12th despite the heavy presence of repressive security forces at the site.
“Workers will die before succumbing to humiliation”
“Let go of Syria, think about us”
“Our enemy is right here, they lie and say its America”
“Jailed workers must be released,” they were chanting while continuing their strike. The workers were protesting their colleagues’ arrest and not receiving their wages for months, along with being deprived of their insurances pensions since 2011.
These workers are living in extremely difficult conditions.
These employees were also protesting how the company ownership status remains in limbo. This is tampering the production line, leaving the employees to suffer most.
These employees enjoyed support from a large sector of people in Ahvaz and in recent days protesters were seen blocking the Tehran-Ahvaz rail line and the city’s Lashkar Bridge, and rallying outside the so-called MPs office and breaking its windows.
The regime’s dispatched repressive forces, plainclothes agents, and intelligence agents resorted to launching tear gas and surrounded the protest site. At least sixty employees were arrested through the course of their weeks of protests.
The Ahvaz National Steel Group, with a 54-year history, was one of the largest production companies with a capacity of employing up to 3,000 people.
In 2009 this company was placed under the control of regime-associated individuals under the pretext of privatization projects. Two years later, following the revelation of a $2.6 billion embezzlement case, this company was placed under the regime’s Bank Melli due to its debts.
Bank Melli then placed $100,000 of this company’s property for sale in 2016, launching a series of huge plundering measures resulting in nothing but the company’s production lines coming to a halt and its workers becoming unemployed.
