Iranian workers and other strata of Iranian people who support them, including students and retired people, held a protest on May 1, 2019, on the International Labor Day, across from the mullahs’ parliament in Tehran. Other Iranian cities including Mashhad and Marivan also saw International Labor Day protests, where workers chanted anti-government slogans.
Women workers and female students participated actively in the International Labor Day gathering held across from the parliament in Tehran. Workers and other protesters held placards and chanted among others, “The government betrays us, the parliament supports it”, “workers, teachers, students, unite”, “high prices and inflation have devastated people.”
Only half an hour after the start of the protest, a large number of State Security forces and plainclothes agents raided the peaceful gathering. They brutalized and arrested dozens of participants, including a number of female labor activists. Some of those identified were Nahid Khodajoo, Nasrin Javadi, Farahnaz Shiri, Elham Salehi, and Hosni Vijeh.
The NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi hailed the protesting workers and demonstrators and called on the public especially the Iranian youth to their support. She urged international organizations defending human rights and workers’ rights to condemn the policies of the mullahs’ regime against workers. Mrs. Rajavi called for urgent action to secure the release of those arrested in the International Labor Day protests.
Mrs. Rajavi insisted that the usurped rights of workers would be restored by a struggle against the totality of the regime, adding, “In spite of the clerical regime’s pressures and policies against Iranian workers, they will neither rest nor surrender; they have shown as much with their protests and uprisings over the past year, and they do rely on the ongoing support and solidarity of women, youth, students and all the disenchanted sectors of Iranian society.”
In another act of protest on the International Labor Day, workers of the Oil and Gas Company in Kermanshah staged a sit-in in the company’s courtyard simultaneous with the arrival of the mullahs’ president, Hassan Rouhani, in their city.
Also, on Wednesday, May 1, 2019, students of Tehran’s Allameh Tabatabaii University disrupted a hollow show of granting Citizens Rights’ Prize by their chants of protest.
