Workers and Employees of the Haft Tappeh sugar mill company in the ancient city of Shush, southwest Iran, continued their strike and protests on Monday for the 15th consecutive day, despite measures by authorities dispatching anti-riot units to prevent any such gatherings.

According to reliable sources, 19 sugar cane mill, and factory workers have been arrested by the plain cloth of mullah’s secret service on Sunday, November 18. Following the day of arrests, the angry protestors launched demonstration in front of governance of Shush city, chanting, “Down with tyrants, viva workers”, “Do not be afraid, we are all together!”, “Neither threat nor prison is effective anymore!”

The Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill Workers’ Union said that 19 workers were detained, identifying them by name.

Workers Union statement

In a statement issued today, the union also said that the labor activists were detained after the peaceful protests on their way back to the company.

It said that the families of the detainees were very concerned about their well-being and that they were demanding the immediate release of their loved ones.

Founded half a century ago in the southern city of Shush, in Khuzestan Province, the Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill is the oldest sugar factory in Iran. Some 5,600 workers are currently working at the company.

State-run news sources said that only four people were detained.

IRNA state-run News Agency quoted the governor of Khuzestan as saying that he was informed that four people were arrested.

The strike on Tuesday was met with force by security forces who tried to prevent the gatherings in which thousands of workers and their families were participating, demanding the release of the arrested workers.

Women played a significant role in the protests and stood at the forefront of the gatherings.

Reports indicate that women’s participation in the protests drew national support from other workers and teachers in Iran. Merchants and shop owners in the Shush Bazaar also closed their shops in support of the workers.

Forefront activists

The most well-known workers who were arrested on Saturday were Ismael Bakhshi and Moslem Armand, and they were both at the forefront of almost all the protests. Ismael Bakhshi is a labor activist and represents Haft Tappeh workers. In his last speech during one of the demonstrations, which was recorded and uploaded on social media, he said that the government did not listen to them despite two weeks of protests.

“The families of some workers have to buy bread on credit, because of unpaid salaries and if this situation continues, even bakeries will refuse to sell bread to the workers on credit”

“We are angry but instead of carrying out specific measures, they bring in riot police and the filthy Seda and Sima (state TV) and film the clashes and say that they (the workers) are seditionists,” he said.

“They only lie instead of solving the problem. The governor and Minister say that this (Haft Tappeh) company was bankrupt even though they embezzled it themselves. Even if they pay our wages, the strike will continue while the company is privatized,” Bakhshi said.

A corrupt company

Since the privatization of the Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill in a questionable 2015 privatization deal, the condition of workers has worsened. They have said that since the transfer of ownership to the present owners, the company’s debts have increased, with the employer only thinking of reducing the permanent workforce.

Accusing the government of supporting the wealthy, the workers complain they have become poorer while the managers of the company have become richer.

Trade unionist Jafar Azimzadeh, the leading member of the Free Union of Workers in Iran, described the workers’ condition as “slavery.”

“The families of some workers have to buy bread on credit, because of unpaid salaries and if this situation continues, even bakeries will refuse to sell bread to the workers on credit,” he said, explaining the plight of workers who have not received their wages for months.

Under such financial strain, some workers have even reached the point of committing suicide.

Ali Naghdi was the latest instance whose dead body was found afloat in a canal on February 27. It was said that Naghdi committed suicide due to his debts as the company refused to pay his wages.

Haft Tappeh workers have always had to fight for their wages, pensions and rights in the past years.

In recent months, they have been going on strikes periodically, protesting unfulfilled promises made by their employer.

The last time the Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill workers went on strike was in mid-August when 500 workers protested not being paid for at least three months. Reports indicate that riot police attacked the striking workers with tear gas and beat the protesters. Five workers were also detained but were later released after being charged with “disrupting order”.

This was not an isolated case of persecution against these workers. Iranian officials have in the past also responded with force, arresting leaders and members of the Haft Tappeh Workers’Syndicate.

At least 100 workers of Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill have been summoned or detained only for speaking out and demanding their rights.

The Syndicate of Workers of Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill in Ahwaz announced on Sunday, February 4, that at least 34 of their workers were arrested by the police in their ongoing strike. Ismail Bakhshi, Karamat Pam, Rahim Besak and Ramadan Alipour were among the detainees.

A number of workers, including Hassan Alkasir, Amir Alkasir, Majid Amiri, and eight others were summoned to the Shush Intelligence Department via telephone on Tuesday, March 6. Earlier, Ramadan Alipour and Rahim Beshagh, labor activists and members of Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill Union were summoned by the 3rd Branch of the Shush Court.

Summonses were issued for about 20 Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill workers following a gathering outside of the governor’s office on March 28 in Ahwaz.

The summons said that the workers had to report to the Shush Prosecutor’s Office at 9am on Saturday, March 31. The workers who went to the Office on March 31 were told that it was closed for the holidays. According to reports, at 1pm on the same day, security forces came to the Haft Tappeh Sugar Mill with arrest warrants for the workers and detained a number of them. The forces then went to the homes of other workers to detain them.

Last Update: Wednesday, 21 November 2018 KSA 09:00 - GMT 06:00 </s> TEHRAN, Iran (AFP) —Workers at Iran's oldest sugar cane company went on strike on Saturday over unpaid wages, calling for the troubled factory to be nationalised, the semi-official news agency ILNA reported.

ILNA published a photo of a rally by workers from the Haft Tapeh company in Shush, southwestern Iran, showing women marching with their children — one holding a sign saying: “We are hungry.”

Haft Tapeh employs about 4,000 workers and was first established in 1962.

Workers have staged numerous rallies over delayed wages and unpaid pensions since the company's privatisation in February 2016, with protests increasing in recent weeks.

“We call on this hard-working class to get back to work before the products go to waste,” said Yadollah Mehrali-Zadeh, deputy governor for Khuzestan province where the company is based.

“The government is trying to pay two to three months of their delayed payments in the upcoming week,” he added, according to the official IRNA news agency.

Iran has seen multiple strikes and protests over working conditions and unpaid wages in a number of sectors in recent months, including steel, education, mining and transport. </s> Iranian truck owners and drivers have launched a strike in seven of Iran's 31 provinces to protest poor working conditions.

Iranian social media users shared details and images of Tuesday's strike with VOA Persian. They said it involved truckers in the provinces of Fars, Hormozgan, Isfahan, Kerman, Khorasan Razavi, Lorestan and Qazvin.

In one video clip sent to VOA Persian and posted on the VOA Farsi Twitter account, a female truck driver says she is joining the strike in solidarity with her colleagues. She also identifies her location as a highway to the city of Mashhad in northeastern Iran.

Images of the truckers shared on social media showed them holding signs complaining about their costs rising while their salaries stagnate. The truckers said the rising costs included insurance, road tolls, commissions, repairs and spare parts.

It was not clear how long the strike would continue. There was no immediate response to the truckers' demands from Iranian authorities on state media.

Various Iranian industries have seen an increase in strikes and protests this year by workers fed up with local and national officials and business owners, whom they accuse of mismanagement and corruption. </s> TEHRAN, Iran — Protesters in the Iranian capital swarmed its historic Grand Bazaar on Monday, news agencies reported, and forced shopkeepers to close their stalls in apparent anger over the Islamic Republic’s troubled economy, months after similar demonstrations rocked the country.

The unplanned demonstration came a day after protests forced two major shopping centres for mobile phones and electronics to close in Tehran. It also signalled widespread unease beneath the surface in Iran in the wake of President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw America from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers.

It wasn’t immediately clear who led the protests. Iran’s semi-official news agencies Fars, ISNA and Tasnim described the protests as erupting after the Iranian rial dropped to 90,000 to the dollar on the country’s black market, despite government attempts to control the currency rate.

Videos posted to social media showed protesters at the bazaar heckling shopkeepers who refused to close, shouting in Farsi: “Coward!”

The head of Iran’s Chamber of Guilds, Ali Fazeli, later was quoted by Tasnim as saying the situation at the bazaar is calm.

“Their demands are delivered through the chamber to the government, and these are being pursued by us,” he said.

Tehran’s sprawling Grand Bazaar has long been a centre of conservatism in Iranian politics and remains an economic force within the country — despite the construction of massive malls around the city. Bazaar families opposed the Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and supported the 1979 Islamic Revolution that saw him replaced by the Shiite theocracy and elected officials.

At the end of last year, similar economic protests roiled Iran and spread to some 75 cities and towns, becoming the largest demonstrations in the country since its 2009 disputed presidential election. The protests in late December and early January saw at least 25 people killed and nearly 5,000 people arrested by authorities.

However, those protests largely struck Iran’s provinces as opposed to Tehran itself. Analysts believe hard-liners likely encouraged the first protest that took place in Mashhad to weaken the administration of President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate cleric within Iran’s politics. The protests then spiraled out of control, with people openly criticizing both Rouhani and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Rouhani’s government has struggled with the economic problems, which have seen high unemployment. A government-set exchange rate of 42,000 rials to $1 has quickly been surpassed in the black market. On Monday, state television quoted Iranian Central Bank chief Valiollah Seif as saying the government plans to create a parallel market next week to combat the black market.

Meanwhile, some hard-liners have called for new elections or for Rouhani’s civilian government to be replaced by a military-led one. The Fars news agency, believed to be close to Iran’s hard-line paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, made a point Monday to publish an article from the Sobh-e No daily newspaper describing the government as being ready to “bow down to foreign threats and sit at the negotiation table.”

Associated Press writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report. </s> A semi-official Iranian news agency is reporting that truck drivers in four provinces in the country are on strike over low wages.

The semi-official ILNA news agency reported on Wednesday that the strike is taking place in Qazvin, Lorestan, East Azerbaijan and Mazandaran province.

ILNA says the strike began on Tuesday over drivers complaining that their wages are not enough to cover their expenses. It wasn't clear from the report how many drivers are taking part in the strike or how long it's supposed to last.

According to ILNA, the drivers also say their expenses have increased since last year, including for tires and air filters.

The protest comes as Iran has seen President Donald Trump pull out of the nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers, putting new strains on the Mideast country's economy. </s> (Iranian Labor News Agency via AP). A group of protesters chant slogans at the old grand bazaar in Tehran, Iran, Monday, June 25, 2018. Protesters in the Iranian capital swarmed its historic Grand Bazaar on Monday, news agencies reported, and forced sh...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - Angry protesters in Iran's capital held a third day of demonstrations on Tuesday over the country's anemic economy as President Hassan Rouhani told the nation that it faces an "economic war" with the United States following America's pullout from the nuclear deal.

While online videos showed demonstrators again confronting police on Tehran's streets and alleyways, the protests looked far smaller than those on Monday, when security forces fired tear gas on crowds in front of parliament.

Earlier on Monday, demonstrators forced the temporary closure of Tehran's Grand Bazaar and on Sunday, protests forced two major shopping centers for mobile phones and electronics to close in Tehran.

Rage persists over the plunging of the Iranian rial to 90,000 to the dollar - double the government rate of 42,000 rials to $1 - as people watch their savings dwindle and shopkeepers hold onto some goods, uncertain of their true value.

Part of the economic uncertainty comes from President Donald Trump's decision to pull America out of the nuclear deal and re-impose sanctions on Iran, even though other world powers have pledged to stand by the accord.

Similar economic protests roiled Iran and spread to some 75 cities and towns at the end of last year, becoming the largest demonstrations in the country since the months-long rallies following the 2009 disputed presidential election. The protests in late December and early January saw at least 25 people killed and nearly 5,000 arrested, but took place largely in Iran's provinces rather than in the capital, Tehran.

These latest protests have hit Iranian commercial areas, including the sprawling, historic warrens of Tehran's Grand Bazaar, the home of conservative merchants who backed the country's 1979 Islamic Revolution and overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. It remains unclear who is leading these protests, though analysts say hard-liners wanting to challenge Rouhani likely sparked the demonstrations at the end of last year.

On Tuesday, witnesses described a noticeable presence of riot police on the capital's streets. Official reports and comments also were slim in Iran's state-controlled media, though Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said the "main provocateurs" of Monday's protests were arrested. He did not elaborate on the number of people detained.

The state-run IRNA news agency euphemistically referred to one incident Tuesday in which the city's metro line was temporarily shut down near the Grand Bazaar, saying it happened "because of some people gathered there."

On Tuesday morning, Rouhani addressed a meeting of judges that included the head of the country's judiciary and parliament. While a relative moderate within Iran's theocratic government, Rouhani struck a hard line himself against America.

"We are fighting against the United States, it wants to make an economic war," the president said. "The U.S. cannot defeat our nation; our enemies are not able to force us to their knees."

That's a far cry from the optimism shared by Rouhani and other Iranians when the 2015 nuclear deal was enacted between Iran and six world powers, including America. Iran agreed to limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.

But that deal came under Barack Obama's administration. Trump, who campaigned on a promise of tearing up the deal, pulled America out of the deal in May. The ensuing turmoil has seen international firms and oil companies back away from their own billion-dollar deals with Iran.

Rouhani's own power within Iran's government appears to be waning, with some openly calling for military officials to lead the country.

Iran also has suggested it could immediately ramp up its production of uranium in response to the U.S. pullout, potentially escalating the very situation the nuclear deal sought to avoid - having an Iran with a stockpile of highly enriched uranium that it could use to build atomic bombs.

Tehran has long denied wanting to build nuclear weapons, despite fears from the West and the United Nations.

Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, speaking at the same event as Rouhani, appeared to directly criticize his administration.

"The government hasn't done enough to confront the economic problems," the conservative politician said, according to the semi-official ISNA news agency.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. </s> Protesters in the Iranian capital swarmed its historic Grand Bazaar on Monday, news agencies reported, and forced shopkeepers to close their stalls in apparent anger over the Islamic Republic's troubled economy, months after similar demonstrations rocked the country.

The unplanned demonstration came a day after protests forced two major shopping centers for mobile phones and electronics to close in Tehran. It also signaled widespread unease beneath the surface in Iran in the wake of President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw the United States from Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers.

It wasn't immediately clear who led the protests. Iran's semi-official news agencies Fars, ISNA and Tasnim described the protests as erupting after the Iranian rial dropped to 90,000 to the dollar on the country's black market, despite government attempts to control the currency rate.

Videos posted to social media showed protesters at the bazaar heckling shopkeepers who refused to close, shouting in Farsi: "Coward!"

The head of Iran's Chamber of Guilds, Ali Fazeli, later was quoted by Tasnim as saying the situation at the bazaar is calm.

"Their demands are delivered through the chamber to the government, and these are being pursued by us," he said.

Tehran's sprawling Grand Bazaar has long been a center of conservatism in Iranian politics and remains an economic force within the country — despite the construction of massive malls around the city. Bazaar families opposed the Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and supported the 1979 Islamic Revolution that saw him replaced by the Shiite theocracy and elected officials.

At the end of last year, similar economic protests roiled Iran and spread to some 75 cities and towns, becoming the largest demonstrations in the country since its 2009 disputed presidential election. The protests in late December and early January saw at least 25 people killed and nearly 5,000 people arrested by authorities.

However, those protests largely struck Iran's provinces as opposed to Tehran itself. Analysts believe hard-liners likely encouraged the first protest that took place in Mashhad to weaken the administration of President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate cleric within Iran's politics. The protests then spiraled out of control, with people openly criticizing both Rouhani and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Rouhani's government has struggled with the economic problems, which have seen high unemployment. A government-set exchange rate of 42,000 rials to $1 has quickly been surpassed in the black market. On Monday, state television quoted Iranian Central Bank chief Valiollah Seif as saying the government plans to create a parallel market next week to combat the black market.

Meanwhile, some hard-liners have called for new elections or for Rouhani's civilian government to be replaced by a military-led one. The Fars news agency, believed to be close to Iran's hard-line paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, made a point Monday to publish an article from the Sobh-e No daily newspaper describing the government as being ready to "bow down to foreign threats and sit at the negotiation table." </s> DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - Gunfire erupted as Iranian security forces confronted protesters early Sunday amid demonstrations over water scarcity in the country's south, though authorities said only one person was wounded in the clashes.

The protests around Khorramshahr, some 650 kilometers (400 miles) southwest of Tehran, come as residents of the predominantly Arab city near the border with Iraq complain of salty, muddy water coming out of their taps amid a yearslong drought.

The unrest there only compounds the wider unease felt across Iran as it faces an economic crisis sparked by President Donald Trump's decision to withdraw America from Tehran's nuclear deal with world powers.

Protests began in Khorramshahr, Abadan and other areas of Iran's oil-rich Khuzestan province on Friday. The demonstrations initially were peaceful, with protesters chanting in both Arabic and Farsi.

But late Saturday and into early Sunday morning, protesters began throwing stones and confronting security forces in Khorramshahr, according to widely shared online videos. State television aired images of rocks and broken glass covering sidewalks, as well as smashed ATMs. Women and children fled as gunfire echoed.

Heavy machine gun fire could be heard in one video showing demonstrators dragging away a man who couldn't walk. Another video appeared to show a man carrying a Kalashnikov assault rifle on the back of a motorcycle near protesters.

State TV reported Sunday afternoon that "peace had returned" to Khorramshahr and an unspecified number of protesters had been arrested. It said some demonstrators carried firearms during the unrest.

It's unclear what sparked the violence. Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli told journalists Sunday there had been no deaths, and just one person wounded.

"Such protests are directed by the propaganda of opportunists from places and people that are recognized by us as foes," Fazli said. "You observe how they are fueling such incidents in the foreign media and in the cyberspace these days."

Khorramshahr and the wider Khuzestan province have seen pipeline bombings by Arab separatists in the past. Tens of thousands of civilians and soldiers were killed in the province during the 1980s Iran-Iraq war.

Exacerbating that unrest is the drought. The Iran Meteorological Organization estimates 97 percent of the country faced some form of drought. Analysts also blame government mismanagement for diverting water away from some farmers in favor of others.

"Although Iran has a history of drought, over the last decade, Iran has experienced its most prolonged, extensive and severe drought in over 30 years," said a recent report by the Food and Agriculture Organization, a United Nations agency.

Some 230 people were poisoned in Khuzestan province after a 20-hour water outage in Ramhormoz county led to drinking water not being chlorinated, the semi-official Fars news agency reported Sunday. The protests did not appear to be linked to the poisoning.

The protests overnight came after three days of demonstrations last week in Tehran, including protesters confronting police outside parliament and officers firing tear gas at the demonstrators. The rallies led to the temporary closure of the city's Grand Bazaar.

The anger is fueled by the Iranian rial plunging to 90,000 to the dollar - double the government rate of 42,000 - as people watch their savings dwindle and shopkeepers hold onto some goods, uncertain of their true value.

Similar economic protests roiled Iran and spread to some 75 cities and towns at the end of last year, becoming the largest demonstrations in the country since the months-long rallies following the 2009 disputed presidential election. At least 25 people were killed and nearly 5,000 arrested during the protests in late December and early January, which took place largely in Iran's provinces rather than the capital.

The economic crisis has been fueled by Trump's May 8 decision to pull the U.S. out of the 2015 nuclear deal and restore sanctions. International firms that made billion-dollar deals with Iran largely have pulled out of them, while the U.S. now is demanding its allies stop buying Iranian oil.

Iran's first Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri on Sunday mocked the U.S. for "begging the Saudis" to increase oil production to drive down rising global oil prices. Trump claimed Saturday that Saudi Arabia might increase its production by some 2 million barrels of oil a day after a call with King Salman. Saudi Arabia later acknowledged the call, but did not mention Trump's 2-million-barrel claim.

"If any country attempts to take Iran's place in the oil market in this battle, we will consider it a big treachery to the Iranian nation and the world community and they will surely pay for this betrayal someday," Jahangiri said, without elaborating.

Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at https://twitter.com/jongambrellAP . His work can be found at http://apne.ws/2galNpz .

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. </s> A newly launched strike by Iranian truckers in seven of Iran’s provinces appears to have alarmed the government, jolting officials into trying to persuade the drivers to return to work.

The Iranian state-run news agency Tasnim quoted a transport official on Wednesday as saying it is “reasonable” for truck drivers to demand greater fees for transporting cargo to compensate for their rising costs. The official, Dariush Amani of Iran’s Road Maintenance and Transportation Organization, said the cargo fees paid to the drivers should be increased by 15 to 20 percent.

It was not immediately clear how or when such a cargo fee increase would be implemented. The official who proposed it works under Iran’s Ministry of Roads and Urban Development.

Iranian truckers began the strike Tuesday in the provinces of Fars, Hormozgan, Isfahan, Kerman, Khorasan Razavi, Lorestan and Qazvin, according to Iranians who notified and sent images to VOA Persian. In the images, the striking truckers displayed signs complaining of the rising costs of insurance, road tolls, commissions, repairs and spare parts as wages stagnate.

Iranian state media said the strike continued into Wednesday, with gasoline truck drivers refusing to supply gas stations in the provinces of Fars and Isfahan in the morning hours. The reports said public concerns about gasoline shortages resulting from the strike led to long lines at gas stations in the cities of Shiraz and Isfahan, the capitals of Fars and Isfahan provinces.

But, the Iranian news agencies quoted officials of the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company as saying they quickly agreed to address the truckers’ concerns in both provinces. The reports said the fueling of gas stations in the regions returned to normal later Wednesday.

Iran’s Islamist rulers long have worried that gasoline shortages could trigger social unrest. The 2-day-old strike is the first mass protest by Iranian truck drivers since anti-government demonstrations began sweeping Iran last December.

This report was produced in collaboration with VOA’s Persian Service.
Workers of the Haft Tappeh sugar mill company in the ancient city of Shush, southwest Iran, continued their strike and protests to the unpaid salaries for the 15th consecutive day.