Gazal Azadfar

News reports from oil-rich Khuzestan province on Iran’s western borders indicate that law enforcement forces and plain clothesmen have rushed to the town of Shoosh and arrested a number of workers at the Haft Tapeh Sugar Cane Plant, thus imposing a form of military rule in the region.

One of the protesting workers at the plant told Rooz that the protests by the workers of the plant went into its seventh day on Wednesday, adding, “Law enforcement and intelligence agents who had come to the town from other neighboring towns began blocking the protesting workers in Shoosh and arrested a number of them.”

According to him, these agents have established road and check points in various sensitive spots of the town and prevent workers from entering the town. This worker could not say how many workers exactly were arrested but added that he had heard numbers ranging from 10 to 50, but none could be reliable. What is certain is that some workers have been detained.

Dastranj website has confirmed the arrest of workers in Shoosh and writes that the agents are preventing the gathering of Haft Tapeh Plant’s workers in Shoosh through harsh tactics and mobile patrols. The site quotes a worker who had said that whenever the agents saw a group of workers together, they would detain them and send them off in police vans. According to this worker, through these arrests, the agents were trying to prevent new protest gatherings.

In the last few days, workers at Haft Tapeh and their families had gathered in front of the Governor’s office and staged rallies on the streets of Shoosh demanding the provision of their rights which included unpaid wages, the removal of the managing director of the plant, members of the board, the head of the plant’s security and the end of creating fake cases against the workers.

The worker who spoke with Rooz called the military rule that has been established by authorities as surprising in relation to the demands of the workers which amount to getting their 3-month unpaid wages. “Instead of trying to fulfill the rightful demands of the workers, authorities engage in attacking them with batons and nerve gas.” Seeming optimistic, he said that the support these workers had received from other groups inside and outside Iran had been very encouraging to them in their protests.