Reported by PMOI/MEK
Iran, Jan. 13, 2019 – On Saturday, demonstrations and strikes continued in various cities of Iran.
Tehran: Demonstrations by customers of Bahman Khodro
A group of customers of Bahman Khodro vehicle manufacturer gathered in front of the headquarters of the company in Tehran and held demonstrations in protest for not having received their purchased vehicles.
During the demonstration, one of the managers of the company ran over the foot of one of the protesters with his car.
Bahman Group, the parent company of Bahman Khodro, is jointly owned by investment companies with strong ties to Iranian regime officials and institutions. Mehr-e Eqtesad Financial Group, the major shareholder of Bahman Group, is a subsidiary of Mehr Eqtesad Bank, which was recently sanctioned by the U.S. government for helping the IRGC Quds Force in funding and sponsoring terrorist activities.
Ghadir Investment Company, another shareholder in Bahman, is strongly tied to Iranian regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei. Ghadir was also sanctioned by the U.S. because of its role in financing the Iranian regime’s repression and terrorism.
“As the Iranian people suffer from fiscal mismanagement and a plummeting rial, the Iranian regime abuses the country’s banking system to enrich its elite and finance repressive state institutions,” U.S. Treasury Under Secretary Sigal Mandelker said when the sanctions were declared in November.
Shadegan and Abadan: Protests by municipality workers
In Shadegan, Khuzestan province, municipal workers held a demonstration in protest to not receiving their paychecks. According to the workers, the municipality has not paid their wages for more than eight months, and they have been forced to find other jobs to keep food on their families’ tables. The municipal workers have been protesting intermittently for months. In November, the workers protested in front of the governor’s office in Ahvaz, Khuzestan’s capital.
At the same time, workers of the municipality of Abadan, also in Khuzestan, gathered in front of the mayor’s office and held protests for three-months-overdue wages.
The protesters are contract workers who have been working for the municipality for years and have been deprived of proper job security and timely payment for their hard work.
Protest by workers of Abadan’s municipality
Yasuj: Demonstrations in front of Bank-e Ayandeh
In Yasuj, a group of customers of Bank-e Ayandeh (Future Bank) gathered in front of the organization’s branch in the city and asked for the return of their deposits.
In recent weeks, there has been news that Bank-e Ayandeh, which is privately owned, has become bankrupt. Following the news, the customers of this bank held gatherings in front of the branches of this bank in different cities and demanded the return of their deposits.
The Central Bank of Iran denied the news of Bank-e Ayandeh’s bankruptcy, but given the current public mistrust in the Iranian regime’s banking and financial sector, the customers of the bank are worried that they will lose hold of their deposits and investments like thousands of other Iranians who fell victim to the widespread fraud by state-backed financial institutions in 2017.
