Reporting by PMOI/MEK
Iran, January 31, 2020—Locals in the Afsaran district of Gorgan, a major city in northern Iran, rallied on Thursday, January 30, protesting the incompetence and indifference of the regime’s municipality officials. People were seen gathering in the streets and blocking roads with tires, demanding officials finally live up to their pledges of launching an initiative known as the “Gorgan Gulf” plan.
For years regime officials have been claiming to seek measures to revive the local bay area in Gorgan, yet their words have never been met with actions. Locals are accusing regime officials of lies after lies in this regard.
The bay depth has decreased to three meters, and in some areas to just 1.5 meters, due to lack of necessary measures by the municipality needed to maintain the area up and running. Experts are forecasting a major environmental disaster if the water channels of this bay are cut off with the Caspian Sea.
However, despite many years and numerous sessions held in this regard, regime officials have failed to take any measures and are more interested in plundering the budgets allocated for such measures to fund their own interests. If the Gorgan Bay area is destroyed, all cities, towns, and villages in this vicinity will be devastated.
Reports from Ahvaz, southwest Iran, indicate that municipality workers have been on strike since last Saturday. This protest rally continues to this day, according to Mohammad Reza Izadi, a member of the regime’s city council.
On Thursday, the workers rallied outside the city’s municipality building, demanding their paychecks that they have been deprived of for the past six months.
As a result of this strike, many areas of Ahvaz have not been cleaned in the past five days, creating intolerable conditions for the locals. Unfortunately, regime officials have shown no sign of taking any care in this regard or seeking any measures to resolve this crisis.
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On Sunday, January 26, taxi drivers of Pakrou Sabz Qeshm Co. held a protesting gathering in front of the company’s offices in Tehran. The protesters chanted slogans against the regime’s authorities including “Death to corrupt officials.” The Iranian regime’s agents began taking films from the protesters. This is one of the ways that intelligence agents intimidate protesters to prevent them from holding and joining rallies. In many cases, the regime imposed penalties against those protesters whose faces were captured by the agents in protest gatherings.
From the capital to western Iran in Marivan, seasonal workers of Shaygan Mehr Apadana Co. protested their nine-month overdue wages. The protesters gathered in front of the regime’s governorate after their demands were ignored by the regime about a week ago in their rally in front of the Sanandaj governorate, in the capital of Kurdistan province.
Also on Sunday, protests erupted at the South Pars Oil Industry in southern Iran. 350 workers of the regime’s 14’th phase of Pars 2 in the city of Kangan blocked the entry gate of the facility. They protested their four-month overdue wages.
The 14th phase of Pars 2 was previously under control of the terrorist-designated Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), which has been a cause for further problems for the workers. The IRGC is notoriously renowned for squandering the country's resources on terrorist and weapons-development projects, putting a heavy strain on the economy and the workers.
Pars is one of Iran's key facilities in the oil, gas and petrochemical industry. The Pars Special Energy Economic Zone is in Bushehr province alongside the Persian Gulf. Pars zone is divided into three zones. Pars 1 is in the city of Asaluyeh, Pars 2 is in Kangan and Pars 3 (known as Northern Pars) is including the cities of Tangestan, Dashti, Bushehr, etc.
Unpaid wages have become a common reason for protests in the past years. Workers, teachers, and government employees from across the country have been constantly demonstrating unpaid and months-delayed salaries. In nearly all cases, the regime has either responded by cracking down on the protesters or complying with a mere fraction of their demands.
Moreover, on January 25, bus drivers of the so-called Khomeini Harbor struck in protest to their low wages and the high price of bus spare parts. The bus drivers accused the regime’s authorities of their empty promises.
The transport of over 5,500 employees and workers of Khomeini Harbor and the petrochemical industry is relying on these bus services.
