Iran Uprising- No. 87
The strike by marketers and shopkeepers in the Iranian Kurdistan cities of Baneh and Piranshahr, who had gone on strike on Saturday February 24 in protest of closing border markets, continued on Monday for the third day. Marketers and shopkeepers in Sardasht also joined the strike on Monday, February 26, and refused to open their shops. The mullahs’ regime, in fear of spreading the strike to other strata of the population, deployed a large number of riot guards, intelligence agents and plainclothes agents in different parts of these cities.
The people of Kurdistan who have no grounds for employment, because of the destruction of the country’s industries and economy, have chosen the very difficult and dangerous work of cross-border porter as their job to make a living. According to some reports, more than 68,000 porters work in the border provinces, of whom 16 to 18 thousand live in Piranshahr and Sardasht. Porters, among whom there are 10-year-olds and older women and men and college students and college graduates, are faced with a variety of dangers, such as shootings by IRGC guards and border troops, falling from the mountains, freezing due to cold, and getting trapped beneath avalanches. They receive $ 6 to $ 10 for each trip.
The mullahs’ regime is preventing these poor people from their job under the pretext of smuggling goods at a time when the clue for large-scale smuggling in the country in the hands of Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards and the regime’s other security and intelligence agencies. Saeed Bastani, a member of the Committee of Industries and Mines of the Parliament, acknowledged that there is no supervision on more than 600 wharfs of the country (state media- 4 December 2017). According to Hussein Ali Hajideligani, member of the regime’s parliament, the money circulation of smuggling goods and currencies is three times more than the country’s development budget (news media – June 19, 2016). Mullah Mohammad Ja’far Montazeri, the Attorney General of the regime, also said that the massive volume of smuggling caused the destruction of the country’s economy and the closure of factories, and admitted, “
We are witnessing the smuggling of goods in large volumes from official and unofficial borders of the country … [in which] some officials either themselves or their children or their affiliates partake (Kayhan daily-affiliated to Khamenei-December 19, 2017). According to reports, 92 percent of goods imported to the country are smuggled goods worth 42 billion dollars, and this figure does not include smuggling exports, including smuggling of fuel, which is a huge sum by itself.
The Iranian Resistance salutes the brave people of Kurdistan and the cities of Baneh and Piranshahr, and calls on all the Iranian people, especially the brave youth, to show solidarity and support with them.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
February 26, 2018