Death Of Young Motorcyclist Sparks Tensions In Iranian Town

The first day of the European Parliament Solidarity Days was held on Tuesday jointly by the Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Committee on Foreign Affairs in coordination with the European Parliament's Delegation for Relations with Iran to exchange views on "How to support Human Rights, Freedom and Democracy in Iran". 

Udo Bullmann, Chair of the Subcommittee on Human Rights, said during the session, “We stand in full solidarity with the courageous people of Iran who risk their lives by taking the streets and speaking out for freedom and justice again, and again and again. We must not and will not let them down. Tyranny will not win. We stand up for dignity, democracy and human rights, we stand with the people of Iran.”

European lawmakers say the event’s objective is to explore ways to support human rights, women, and civil society in Iran with a large spectrum of Iranian guest speakers, and to reflect on challenges and prospects for Iran's democratic movement. However, the list of the speakers on the first day drew controversial reactions online as some of the participants were labeled as regime apologists by some social media users. 

Women's rights activist and writer Mansoureh Shojaee, journalist Mahdieh Golroo, Sociology of Gender Researcher Fatameh Karimi, and former political prisoner Sattar Rahmani as well as Ardeshir Amirarjomand, a senior advisor to dissident former prime minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi – were some of the speakers. 

Also among the participants was Canada-based opposition figure Hamed Esmaeilion, whose recent resignation from the Alliance for Freedom and Democracy in Iran has sparked bitter arguments between constitutional monarchists and his supporters.

He told Iran International after the session that he focused his remarks on how to help “the Iranian revolution” on three main topics: providing uncensored internet, helping the affected families and protesters – free or detained -- inside the country, and setting up a fund to support striking workers.

He added that the designation of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization was also among the topics discussed during the session. Blacklisting the IRGC has been one of the main demands of the Iranian opposition as it is the regime’s hand in cracking down on dissent inside the country and handling Tehran’s proxy wars across the region.

One of the main hosts of the event is Cornelia Ernst, the chair of the European Parliament's Delegation for Relations with Iran, which has maintained a regular dialogue with the Islamic Republic’s parliament and its mandate is to further promote dialogue and “mutual understanding” with the Iranian parliament. Such a mandate seems to be against the Women, Life, Liberty movement, which has engulfed Iran since September 2022, when the death in custody of Mahsa Amini sparked the protests against the regime.

However, Ernst voiced opposition sanctioning the IRGC, expressing concerns that the designation would cut off relations and dialogue with the Islamic Republic and may pave the way for the regime to become another North Korea, which the European Union does not want.

Hanna Neumann, the representative of Germany in the European Parliament who has been very active in supporting the Iranian protest movement especially since September 2022, also spoke during the session. She said the protests and the ensuing crackdown have shed light on the atrocities of the regime.

“Thanks to the protests, everyone knows now how brutal this regime is, how it is beating, raping, executing its own people,” she said, noting that “it is quite clear that the regime is impossible to reform and that it is a big threat to its own people, to the region and to the world as a whole.” 

 Other MEPs also called for the freedom of hundreds of political prisoners, especially women, marginalized minorities, and torture survivors.

They also reiterated their call for the EU to add the IRGC to its list of terrorist organizations, three months after a plenary resolution adopted on January 19, 2023.

Workers in more than 80 companies have joined industrial action, protesting poor working conditions, low wages and rising costs of living, according to the Council for Organizing Oil Contract-Workers' Protests.

The council accused the regime of seeking to sow division among workers through ethnic differences. ”It can be seen in some places that our protest rallies have been dispersed on the pretext that workers belong to a certain ethnicity,” the group said in a statement this week.

“This is while all of us workers from every part of the country have common pains and enemies. All of us are protesting the poverty and rising prices and worsening of our working and living conditions every day.”

Almost all of the striking workers in oil, gas, steel, petrochemicals and other industries, are not officially hired by the country’s oil company or relevant ministries and are working on temporary contracts, so risk their only means of livelihood by joining the strikes.

Labor activists believe warn that society is on the verge of explosion as strikes reach new levels. Experts say there is no end in sight as tensions rise amidst a crumbling economy and the biggest anti-regime sentiment in years.

Strikes at Salman Farsi Petrochemical company

In a bid to retain calm, employers claim that the strikes will end soon, claiming there will be no other rounds of strikes until the end of the summer.

However, the council refuted this. “We firmly declare that we are not slaves to anyone so no one can speak on our behalf,” it said. 

In an audio file sent to Iran International and verified by our contacts earlier in the week, a man recounted the ordeal of contract workers, describing their situation as “stuck in hidden slavery”. The worker says the problems stem from the special status of a few well-connected senior managers and systematic corruption in the energy industry.

He explained details of the meagre wages paid with delays and the lack of weekend breaks for overworked and underpaid staff. The worker also went on to explain how the country’s security forces have threatened those striking and their families of serious repercussions if they do not stop participation in industrial action. 

The workers who are officially employed by the oil ministry enjoy better conditions and usually do not risk their position by joining the popular movements.

Javad Abbasi Tavallali, a journalist with first hand experience about the working conditions in Asaluyeh -- a city in Bushehr province and home to the majority of the country’s energy plants and refineries – told Iran International earlier in the week that almost all these government contractors, such as Petro Sina Arya, PetroPars, and Petro Paydar Iranian, are affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard.

The Council did not disclose the exact number or percentage of the striking workers or when the factories will have to stop operations if the strikes continue.

The current round of strikes started on Saturday as workers demand wage increases in the face of more than 50 percent annual inflation. 

On Tuesday, Pahlavi once again called upon Canada, the UK and the EU to proscribe the whole of IRGC as a terrorist organization. While the IRGC is proscribed in the United States, other nations such as the UK have been reluctant to list it, while hopes remain of reviving the nuclear talks which collapsed last year.

“My message to the rank and file of the IRGC and to the nation’s military and security forces is to part ways with this criminal regime and join the Iranian people in their revolution,” read his tweet.

On Monday, the US Treasury sanctioned four senior Iranian police officers and military officials involved in crushing protests after Mahsa Amini died in morality police custody.

Department officials announced they were taking action against the new secretary of Iran's Supreme Council of Cyberspace (SCC), the organization responsible for Internet policy and blockade of popular websites.

The British government also imposed further sanctions against Islamic Republic officials, including IRGC commanders, for their involvement in the regime's bloodshed both inside and outside the country.

“The Iranian regime is responsible for the brutal repression of the Iranian people and for exporting bloodshed around the world. That’s why we have more than 300 sanctions in place on Iran, including on the IRGC in its entirety,” Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said in a statement.

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken wrote in a tweet on Monday that the US remains “committed to supporting the people of Iran as they face brutal repression from the Iranian regime”.

Blinken reiterated that the Iranian officials targeted by the US and UK sanctions were involved in serious violations of human rights or censorship in Iran.

The US Treasury Department on Monday imposed sanctions on four senior Iranian law enforcement and military officials involved in crushing protests following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini.

The department said it was taking action against the new secretary of Iran's Supreme Council of Cyberspace (SCC), the authority responsible for Iran's cyberspace policy and blockage of popular websites.

Earlier in the day Britain and the European Union also announced fresh sanctions on Iranian officials for human rights violations.

The US Special Envoy for Iran, Robert Malley slammed the repression of Iranians protesting against the regime. “Iran’s brutal treatment of the people of Iran and its pervasive censorship of the internet should continue to alarm the entire world,” he said.

He said the sanctions are simply the latest in a series of actions taken in close consultation with Washington’s allies and partners and aimed at holding the Iranian regime accountable.

In an interview with the IRGC-linked Fars news agency, Ali Khanmohammadi, the spokesman for the Headquarters To Promote Virtues and Prohibit Vice, the jargon for the morality police, called hijab defiance "a worrying situation and an onslaught on Islamic rules." He called on government institutions, meaning the police and the IRGC, to stop the behavior.

Khanmohammadi further warned that if the compulsory hijab rules are undermined, soon respect for other laws will also disappear.

The clerical regime has made hijab an existential issue for itself, trying to enforce it almost at any cost, including running the risk of renewed protests.

Former Deputy Judiciary Chief Mohammad Javad Larijani said recently that "the presence of a few unveiled women is not the social reality in Iran." Meanwhile he called the behavior of women who remove their headscarves "sedition," an offence that entails punishments as harsh as the death sentence in an Islamic society.

On the other hand, a prominent reformist cleric told Rouiydad24 website that the country's officials have given up dealing with major problems and all they do is intervention in the people's lifestyle and invading their privacy.

This comes while ultraconservative lawmaker Javad Karimi Qoddusi said on Sunday, that forceful methods that the morality police uses no longer work in Iran because people have become emboldened because of recent protests.

Critics say that some clerics including the Friday Imam of Qeshm island have gone out of their way and shut down people's shops for allowing unveiled women to shop. He said this is strictly against the religion and the law. He characterized such behavior as radical and a disgrace to the religion.

A few clerics have told the media that trying to force people to accept religious rules will discourage even the pious from following the religion. They warn that radical behaviors against unveiled women can lead to public insecurity while the government's main responsibility is to keep society and people secure.

Although many Iranians have seen videos that show the Friday Imam of Qeshm shutting down shops and harassing shopkeepers and shoppers in the island's malls, Gholamreza Hajebi has denied doing what is seen in videos, and accused his critics of distorting reality.

Iranian lawyer Nemat Ahmadi has likened the cleric's behavior of medieval Muslim rulers who did not have any respect for justice and punished whoever they did not like on the spot without asking questions first. He added that the least the Friday Imam of Qeshm can be charged with is undermining the principle of separation of the executive, legislative and judiciary bodies. However, the cleric cannot be associated with any one of the three bodies of the government.

Meanwhile, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has spoken differently about the government's reaction to the resistance against hijab in his speeches. While at times insisting on the enforcement of hijab, at other times he has said that even those who do not cover their hair are his daughters. However, security forces and their vigilante agents are under Khamenei’s control.

While many have warned that strict measures against women might lead to confrontation between various groups, in his latest Eid al-Fitr sermon on Saturday, Khamenei advised government officials to avoid creating confrontations between citizens.

Some have interpreted this as Khamenei’s signal to relax hijab rule, but so far all the signs point at the opposite direction.