Analysis by PMOI/MEK
Iran, Nov. 19, 2018 – On Sunday, stores in many locations in Tehran remained closed. Some of the areas included the shoe market, 15 Khordad Street, Bab-e Homayoun, Peley-e Norouzkhan, Saray-e Azadi and Bazar-e Ghaem. Shop owners and merchants refused to open for business because of poor economic and living conditions, and high prices.
Earlier this week, other parts of the Tehran bazaar held demonstrations and strikes in protest to deteriorating economic conditions. The protests of Tehran’s merchants are happening in tandem with other strikes and protests from different communities and workers of different industries.
Yesterday, the workers of the Haft Tapeh sugar mill company in Shush, southwest Iran, held the 14th day of their strike and protests because of unpaid wages and poor working conditions. In Ahvaz, steelworkers are also holding strikes, which has almost lasted a week. The steelworkers to have not received their paychecks in months.
Iran’s truckers are also continuing a nationwide strike they began at the beginning of November, which is the fourth of its kind since the beginning of the year. Last week, Iran’s teachers also held a two-day strike which included dozens of cities. They earned wide support from their students and the Iranian population. The farmers of Isfahan are also continuing their strikes and demonstrations in protest to the corrupt policies of the regime and the mismanagement of the country’s water sources.
Despite widespread efforts by Iranian authorities to blame economic woes on foreign countries, the Iranian people hold the regime responsible for their hardships. They are seeing the regime spend the country’s wealth on instigating foreign wars and spreading terrorism in the region, pouring billions of dollars into the coffers of its surrogates in Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen and the Assad regime in Syria. They are also seeing the corruption of government officials, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who sits on a $95 billion fortune, according to an investigative report by Reuters in 2013.
The people of Iran have made it clear that what they demand is regime change. This was evident in their slogans during the protests that spread across Iran in December and has continued ever since, in which they called for the toppling of the mullahs regime. These strikes are the extension of that uprising and will continue until the people achieve their ultimate demand.
