Worker protests accounted for 80 instances, or roughly a quarter, of the protests. Some of them spanned several days, including the sit-in and demonstrations by about 2,000 laid off employees at the Pipe Manufacturing Plant in the city of Ahvaz (western Iran). The workers chanted slogans like ‘Ensuing livelihood is our inalienable right,’ a disdainful reference to the clerical regime’s propaganda slogan ‘Nuclear energy is our inalienable right.’
Worker protests accounted for 80 instances, or roughly a quarter, of the protests. Some of them spanned several days, including the sit-in and demonstrations by about 2,000 laid off employees at the Pipe Manufacturing Plant in the city of Ahvaz (western Iran). The workers chanted slogans like ‘Ensuing livelihood is our inalienable right,’ a disdainful reference to the clerical regime’s propaganda slogan ‘Nuclear energy is our inalienable right.’
Another major demonstration was carried out by more than 1,000 workers at the Sugar Cane Factory of Haft-Tapeh in Khuzestan (western Iran). They were protesting deferred wages.
Second to workers, Iranian university students held the most number of protests, amounting to more than 50 gatherings and hunger strikes against the regime’s suppressive measures in Iran’s campuses.
More than 800 students at the Noshirvani Industrial University of Babol staged a 5-day-long protest and sit-in, with slogans like ‘Death to dictator’ and ‘Students die, but will never surrender.’ A number of students conducted a dry hunger strike while insisting on their demands.
Nearly 2,000 students at the Free University of Tabriz (northwestern Iran) protested against the deaths of 3 female classmates by refusing to attend classes and staging a gathering.
Other social sectors carried out 90 acts of protest in the same period, some of which led to confrontations with the regime’s suppressive forces.
Families of political prisoners held Norouz (Iranian New Year) celebrations across from the notorious Evin prison in the capital Tehran. They were objecting to arbitrary arrests and the intolerable circumstances experienced by their loved ones at the regime’s prisons. Among the protestors were relatives of political prisoners affiliated with the main Iranian opposition, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK).
On February 20, 2009, agents from the clerical regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) carried out simultaneous raids on houses of people who had family members residing at Camp Ashraf, arresting and imprisoning a number of people whose fates remain unknown.