NCRI Staff
NCRI – The Iranian regime’s security forces attacked the workers of two companies in central Iran with “batons and tear gas” followed by beating and mayhem of the workers.
On Tuesday September 19, a number of workers of two factories, Azarab and Hepco, staged protest gathering at two different locations in the city of Arak. Workers of Azarab Company closed the main Arak-Tehran road and demanded the authorities pay attention to their protest when the Special Forces attacked them. According to the report, workers of Hepco Company also blocked Arak’s railway line.
In cyberspace and some websites, photographs and videos from the clash of anti-riot police with these gatherings have been published. Also in the cyberspace networks and social media, there are images of workers who have had their legs broken by the anti-riot police crackdown or have been injured on their heads and faces.
In one of the video clips released from the rally that has widely reflected on social networks, workers chant “poor worker should not be beaten,” and “dishonorable; rapscallion” and also “innocent workers must be freed” and “mercenary go away.”
According to reports on Wednesday, the protest gathering of Azarab company workers in Arak was raided by security forces that used tear gas to disperse the workers. The workers announced in the gathering that they have not received wages for the past four months.
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The workers, who own part of the company’s shares, also objected the general meeting of the company on September 17 and 18, saying that the law was “not observed” at the meeting.
Workers from the two Hepko and Azarab factories in Arak have already gathered several times before protesting their unpaid salaries.
Provincial authorities have repeatedly pledged to pay the unpaid salaries of these workers, but the workers said in their gatherings that they did not fulfill these promises.
Previously, security forces had repeatedly attacked labor union gatherings and wounded or detained workers. In recent years, dozens of workers have also been sentenced to prison for holding trade union gatherings.
Azarab Industries Co. is a construction company based in Iran, which is active in the field of construction of industrial infrastructure, gas refineries, petrochemical complexes, cement factories and hydroelectric power plants. The Company was registered on 2 May 1985, under order No. 913 at Company Registration Department in Markazi province and handles EPC, BOO and BOT management agreements in line with state development policies to indigenize technologies of the major industries.
Hepco Company was established in 1974 with the aim of assembling the construction machinery, and since 1975 has officially started working with the companies of Internash, Poklin, Sakai, Dinapak, and Lokomo from the USA, France, Japan, Sweden and Finland.
Hepco is currently manufacturing and supplying construction, mining and agricultural machinery.
