The truckers nationwide strike in Iran has entered its second week intensifying the crisis inside the clerical regime such that the regime’s leaders have been horrified from continuation and spread of the strike such that the regime’s Supreme Leader, Khamenei, sent his chief prosecutor general Montazeri to the scene to threaten the strikers to execution.
According to the Iranian News Network TV News on September 29, Montazeri said: “According to the information we have, in some routes and some of the cities, there are elements who are provoking some of the truckers or possibly blocking them and creating problems for them. They are subject to the rules and regulations of banditry and according to the law the punishment of the bandits is very severe, sometimes resulting in the death penalty.”
At the same time, Ali al-Qasimehr, the chief justice of the Fars province, accused the strikers of “corruption on earth,” and IRGC Brigadier General Mohammad Sharafi, a commander of the State Security Forces, threatens the protesters with harsh action, (State TV – September 29).
Two days earlier, the Fars Province Transportation Director General had called the strike of truck drivers as rumors and said: “It’s been a few days that rumors about truck drivers’ strike have been circulating in the media and cyberspace. This misuse of from the needs of the truck drivers by the opponents to create crisis in the country is clear for every Iranian (IRGC’s FARS news agency, September 27).
The Iranian regime also arrested and imprisoned at least 22 strikers calling them “disrupters of the order.” The IRGC Colonel Kavos Mohammadi, deputy of the Fars provincial police force, said: “Following the disrupting acts of some of these people on the roads… After the visible and invisible patrol of officers, 22 thugs and disrupters of public order were arrested and, after filing a case, they were sent to the judiciary authorities and through them to the prisons. Police will deal with sensitivity and vigilance with the smallest insecurity factors in coordination with the judiciary, and the process of confronting them will continue on a daily basis. The police monitor and control all the roads in this province, visibly and invisibly, and resolutely deal with all elements of disrupters of order and security in these areas,” (State-run IRNA news agency – September 26).
In this regard, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, saluted the strikers throughout Iran, describing the vindictive threats of the mullahs against the dignified and hardworking drivers as a reflection of the growing crisis of the clerical regime.
Mrs. Rajavi said the ruling mullahs were the biggest bandits in the history of Iran, and that they neither want nor can respond to legitimate demands of striking drivers. She called on all human rights organizations to take action to release the arrested and urged the general public, especially the youth, to support the strikers. She added that realization of these demands is only possible with the establishment of democracy and people’s sovereignty. A regime that threatens to execute its working people due to a strike must be rejected by the international community.