THIS PAGE WILL BE UPDATED WITH THE LATEST NEWS
UPDATE: 9:00 PM CET
Iran Uprising at a Glance
Based partially on reporting by PMOI (MEK) Network in Iran
Monday, May 1, 2023 – 8 PM GMT + 1
- Days: 228
- Protests: 282 cities
- Fatalities: 750+ estimated deaths, 675 identified by MEK
- Detentions: 30,000
Iran’s nationwide uprising marked its 228th day on Monday. According to reports by the Iranian opposition, Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), strikes continued in over 110 industrial sites throughout Iran. Different workers and employees continued their protest gatherings to achieve their rights.
MEK Resistance Units in the cities of Behbahan in southwest Iran and the Hashtgerd near Karaj, west of the capital Tehran, portrayed large images of Iranian Resistance Leader Massoud Rajavi and Iranian opposition coalition NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi.
Pensioners and retirees of the Social Security Organization in Kerman, south-central Iran, Ahvaz, southwest Iran, Sari and Rasht in northern Iran; and Kermanshah, western Iran, were also in the streets and protesting for their rights.
May 1 – Rasht, northern #Iran
Retirees and pensioners of the Social Security Organization are rallying outside the local SSO branch and protesting poverty, inflation, low pensions, and high prices.#InternationalWorkersDay #MayDay2023 pic.twitter.com/TKvZ22H98P— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) May 1, 2023
May 1 – Kerman, south-central #Iran
Retirees and pensioners of the Social Security Organization are protesting poverty, inflation, low pensions, and high prices.#InternationalWorkersDay #MayDay2023 pic.twitter.com/9HY6mfiVHp— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) May 1, 2023
In Tehran, members of the Veterans Union of the Iranian Labor Community organized a rally and marched in the streets protesting the mullahs’ regime and their anti-labor policies.
May 1 – Tehran, #Iran
Members of the Veterans Union of the Iranian Labor Community held a gathering and marched in the streets to mark #InternationalWorkersDay.#MayDay2023 pic.twitter.com/zq5Cg9gawi— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) May 1, 2023
In Bandar-e Khomeini, a major portal city in southwest Iran, drivers at the local terminal went on strike and protested for their rights to be respected and acknowledged.
May 1 – Bandar-e Khomeini, southwest #Iran
Drivers at the local terminal are on strike and protesting for their rights to be respected and acknowledged.#InternationalWorkersDay #MayDay2023 pic.twitter.com/MeKDCMVywM— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) May 1, 2023
In other reports, workers of the Yazd Tire Industrial Complex held a gathering in the city of Yazd, central Iran, protesting for their rights on Monday. This is the third day of these rallies.
In the city of Ilam, western Iran, workers of the local petrochemical company laid a symbolic empty table sheet on the ground to protest their low paychecks that are making it impossible for them to make ends meet. In other reports, officials of a local petrochemical site banned 200 workers from entering the site, which had previously protested the regime’s payment policies and had rallied for higher paychecks.
May 1 – Ilam, western #Iran
Officials of a local petrochemical site banned the entrance of 200 workers who had previously protested the regime's payment policies and had rallied for higher paychecks.#InternationalWorkersDay #MayDay2023 pic.twitter.com/6HUNn9jHZ6— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) May 1, 2023
May 1 – Ilam, western #Iran
Workers of the local petrochemical company laid a symbolic empty table sheet to protest their low paychecks that are making it impossible for them to make ends meet.#InternationalWorkersDay #MayDay2023 pic.twitter.com/6i2Q8kJsO6— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) May 1, 2023
In the city of Shahriar in Tehran Province, the medical staff of Imam Sajjad Hospital held a gathering on Monday to protest the regime’s unjust payment policies.
May 1 – Shahriar, Tehran Province, #Iran
Medical staff of the Imam Sajjad Hospital held a gathering protesting the regime's unjust payment policies and being mistreated at work by their officials.#InternationalLabourDay #MayDay pic.twitter.com/VSwn0WzlaU— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) May 1, 2023
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of NCRI sent a message to Iran’s workers and the nation to join their protests and link up with the nation’s larger struggle to overthrow this regime.
Seeking to quell and silence the ongoing anti-regime protests, the clerical regime’s operatives continued targeting schools with chemical attacks. On Sunday, they attacked several all-girls schools, including:
- The all-girls Mojtaba Jafari School in the city of Kermanshah, western Iran. At least 40 students were transferred to the city’s Mohammad Kermanshahi Hospital. A number of them are in dire conditions, according to local reports.
- The all-girls Efaf School in Tehran
- The all-girls Me’raj School in Saqqez, western Iran.
May 1 – Saqqez, western #Iran
More footage of regime operatives launching a chemical gas attack targeting the all-girls Me'raj School. Many students were poisoned and transferred to medical centers, according to reports.#IranChemicalAttacks pic.twitter.com/GF7AgKaXVe— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) May 1, 2023
Lawmakers Introduce Bill to Permanently Authorize Law Allowing Sanctions on Iran
A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation in the House and Senate on Monday to permanently authorize a law allowing the president to implement punishing sanctions on Iran’s economy. The Solidifying Iran Sanction Act, sponsored by Rep. Michelle Steel (R-Calif.) and co-sponsored by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is intended to permanently extend the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA) of 1996, which is set to expire in 2026.
The ISA, which must be continuously renewed by Congress under a mandatory sunset provision, allows the U.S. executive branch to impose sanctions on Iran’s energy sector to cripple its attempts to procure a nuclear weapon, an effort Tehran has accelerated toward in recent years.
UPDATE: 1:30 PM CET
Street Children in Iran Are Being Used By Drug Dealers, Official Admits
On Monday, May 1, the semi-official ISNA news agency revealed another social tragedy in Iran under the rule of the clerical dictatorship.
“The announcement that the daily income of juvenile workers in Tehran is something between 400 thousand to 1 million tomans per day was brought up by Tehran Municipality Welfare Organization in December of last year,” ISNA wrote.
“Mohammadreza Heydarhaii, Head of the Social Victim Affairs Office of the Welfare Organization believes that unfortunately some of the child labor victims and street children are implicated with drug dealer gangs and are transferring drugs,” ISNA added.
Iran APT Using ‘Bellaciao’ Malware Against Targets in Us, Europe and Asia
An Iranian state-sponsored hacking group has been accused of deploying a new strain of malware named BellaCiao against several victims in the U.S., Europe, India, Turkey and other countries. Researchers from cybersecurity firm Bitdefender attributed the malware to APT35/APT42 – also known as Mint Sandstorm or Charming Kitten – an advanced persistent threat group that is allegedly run by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Martin Zugec, technical solutions director at Bitdefender, told Recorded Future News that the malware developers named the malware BellaCiao as a reference to an Italian folk song about resistance fighting.
Iran APT using ‘BellaCiao’ malware against targets in US, Europe and Asia | Researchers from cybersecurity firm Bitdefender attributed the malware to an Iranian state-sponsored hacking group | https://t.co/D8Pcanf6Mt @TheRecord_Media pic.twitter.com/Livtu3Er3k
— 780th Military Intelligence Brigade (Cyber) (@780thC) May 1, 2023
There’s An Increasing Trend of Attacks Against Clergy, Newspaper Admits
Admitting to public anger against the entire regime, the state-run newspaper Hamdeli wrote that the people of Iran blame clerics for their problems and that’s why they treat them harshly.
“Street violence against clerics and their apprentices has increased,” the paper wrote on April 30. “The attack on the clergy is worthy of consideration, especially since this violence has gone beyond verbal violence and become physical to the very extent of murder.”
Hamdeli added: “When most of the officials are made up of clergy, consequently some people blame the clergy and recognize them as the culprits of the current situation; Thus, they allow themselves to insult or treat them harshly.”
On Saturday, April 29, a person in Qom attacked two state-affiliated mullahs with a car at a bus station on Shahada Safaiye Street. After bumping into them, the driver stepped out of his vehicle and severely stabbed one of them with a knife.
Also, on Wednesday, April 26, Abbas Ali Soleimani, a member of the Council of Experts and the Supreme Leader’s former representative in Sistan and Baluchistan province was killed by a bank security officer in Babolsar, northern Iran.
On Sunday, April 30, Major Alireza Shahraki, the head of the Saravan police force, was killed in an armed attack. According to sources, a team from the governor’s office has arrived in Saravan, and two other teams from the police and an intelligence agency, as well as members of the provincial MOIS, went to Saravan to investigate the death of Shahraki and its cause. The meeting was held on Sunday afternoon with the governor of Saravan attending personally.
UPDATE: 7:30 AM CET
Workers’ Protests in Step With the Uprising Display Iranian Society’s Immense Potential for a Revolution
Dear workers and farmers, exasperated workers, who refuse to accept oppression, inequality, and repression, and have risen up to protest and revolt!
Happy International Workers’ Day to all of you. To the millions of honorable men and women whose whole being has been shackled by the mullahs with temporary contracts, unpaid wages, miserable salaries, unstable jobs, poverty, insecurity, discrimination, and repressive controls. Today in Iran, under the most brutal system of exploitation in the world – the religious dictatorship – the workers’ anger and their ongoing protests in solidarity with the Iranian people’s uprising against the regime demonstrate the immense potential of Iranian society for revolution.
Protests Expand in Iran Prior to International Workers’ Day
Iran’s nationwide uprising is witnessing its 227th day on Sunday as various protests expand across the country and regime officials are threatening to lay off thousands of industrial workers who have been on strike for over a week now. The protesting workers of oil, gas, petrochemical, steel, copper, and other industrial workers are seeking their rights to be acknowledged and better pay as the country’s economy is nosediving while inflation and prices of ordinary goods are skyrocketing. Protests in Iran have to this day expanded to at least 282 cities. Over 750 people have been killed and more than 30,000 are arrested by the regime’s forces, according to sources of the Iranian opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). The names of 675 killed protesters have been published by the PMOI/MEK.
Our Struggle Continues: Messages of Hope and Determination From Political Prisoners in Iran
A group of political prisoners incarcerated in the notorious Gohardasht Prison of Karaj, located west of the Iranian capital Tehran, have written a message marking International Workers’ Day. Despite the threats they face with each passing day, these brave political prisoners are calling on the Iranian people to join their ranks and stand shoulder to shoulder with the country’s hardworking laborers in the nation’s unified struggle against the mullahs’ dictatorship ruling Iran. The letter comes against the backdrop of more than seven months of ongoing protests, and a week-long strike by workers of different sectors in various cities across the country.
Labor Activists Arrested on the Eve of Labor Day
On the eve of International Workers Day, security forces raided the residence of an imprisoned teacher, Mohammad Habibi. They violently arrested several teachers and labor activists in that house. The raid took place on April 28, 2023. Security forces arrested Khadijeh Pak-Zamir, the wife of political prisoner Mohammad Habibi. Others arrested were Reyhaneh Ansarinejad, Asal Mohammadi, Hirad Pirbadaghi, Anisha Assadollahi, Sarvnaz Ahmadi, Kamyar Fakour, Hassan Ebrahimi, Jaleh Rouhzad, and Oldouz Hashemi. In Iran, Teachers’ Day follows International Workers’ Day. The clerical regime seeks to prevent teachers and workers from holding legitimate and rightful protests by arresting and summoning teachers and labor activists.
Cut Ties With Iran’s Regime: A Political Prisoner’s Plea to the International Community
Golrokh Ebrahimi Iraee, a political prisoner in Iran, recently issued a message to the world governments, urging them to cut diplomatic ties with the regime in Iran, close its embassies, and refrain from supporting the perpetrators of violence against the Iranian people. She has been sentenced to six years in prison on charges of “assembly and collusion” and an additional one-year sentence for “propaganda against the state.”
In her message, Iraee highlighted the normalization of death and violence in Iran, from the public execution of opponents to the mass killing of political prisoners in 1988. Despite these atrocities, countries that claimed to uphold human rights recognized the first Islamic fundamentalist regime.
Also, read Iran News in Brief – April 30, 2023
