The British Committee for Iran Freedom (BCFIF) strongly condemns the Iran regime’s threats and intimidation against workers in Iran to break up an ongoing nationwide strike at the country’s oil and gas sector.

In actions reminiscent of months before the 1979 revolution in Iran, workers and employees of more than 40 refineries, factories, and companies in Iran’s oil, gas, and petrochemical sectors are taking part in a nationwide strike, according to reports from Iran.

The strike is going on in over 20 cities in 12 provinces with workers and employees protesting a wide range of issues including poor living conditions, harsh working conditions, lack of pension and health insurance as well as several months of unpaid salaries, which are already far below Iran’s official poverty line. This is while Tehran is known to spend billions of dollars each year to support the Assad regime and arm terrorist proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon and Houthis in Yemen.

These repressive measures targeting workers is the latest campaign by the regime in Iran to crush popular protests which in recent months also include a new wave of death sentences against and execution of individuals who were arrested for participating in anti-regime protests last year.

British Committee for Iran Freedom stands with the brave people and workers of Iran as they demand better living conditions, basic rights and freedom and a decent salary that reflects Iran’s vast national wealth.

British Committee for Iran Freedom calls on the UK Government to condemn Iran regime’s repressive measures against workers and the Iranian people, which has intensified during the corona pandemic, and to work with international allies to secure immediate actions at the UN aimed at holding the regime in Tehran to account for these atrocities and domestic repression.  

We reiterate the call by the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), Mrs Maryam Rajavi, urging the UN Security Council, the UN Secretary-General, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UN Human Rights Council to support the just demands and most fundamental rights of the Iranian people and the Iranian workers and to take urgent steps to make sure that the United Nations immediately sends an independent, international fact-finding mission to Iran to visit the prisons and to meet with political prisoners and thousands arrested protesters and workers.

Sir David Amess MP

Co-Chair of British Committee for Iran Freedom

13 August 2020