Read this article in:
English
12 February, 2014All 28 striking miners detained by the Iranian authorities at the Chadormalu Mine in the central province of Yazd have been released and the strike has been called off. However with major issues unresolved it could easily restart in the near future.
Last week we informed you of the strike and the arrests as well as sharing with you the protests we have made to the Iranian President. At the time 20 strikers had been arrested but over the following three days eight additional workers were arrested despite the authorities claiming that nobody would be arrested because of “issues related to their wages.” According to the Chadormalu workers union, the security police of the Ardakan district were directly responsible for the arrests of the workers. Since the first arrests, Hossein Jenayi, the head of the workers union of Toos Asphalt company (the contractor that provided the workers for the Chadormalu mines) and Bahram Hassaninejad, the secretary of the workers union of the mining company were both arrested. The latter was dismissed from his job during earlier protests in November 2013 and on January 26; the Ardakan Labor Office Determination Committee confirmed Hassaninejad’s dismissal orders, sparking new protests among the mineworkers.
All have now been released although Bahram Hassaninejad was released on bail and appears to have been charged on an employer complaint of “acting against national security. Ominously news reports quote Mohseni Ejei, speaker of the Iranian regime’s judiciary branch, as warned protesters that there would be consequences for “upsetting public order and national security.”
The iron ore mines of Chadormalu in Iran’s central desert, about 180 kilometers north east of the city of Yazd and about 300 kilometers south of Toos provide raw material for various steel production plants in Iran, thus playing an important role in the economy and industrial production of Iran
IndustriALL Global Union continues to follow developments in Iran and develops contacts with various union organizations operating in the country.