On 16 September Iranian riot police attacked a gathering of carpet makers in the northern coastal city of Babolsar. They arrested around 40 and injured a number of others.
According to reports from the Worker-communist Party of Iran, workers of Farsh e Alborz (“Alborz Carpet”) had gathered in front of the factory when the police arrived, firing tear gas and shots into the air and beating up the workers in baton charges.
Several hundred workers of this factory lost their jobs, following the company’s closure last winter. Despite promises by employers and the local government, the factory has failed to resume operation. Hundreds of workers have gone without pay for months.
This attack comes in the wake of a number of other recent acts of violence by the security forces against workers — at Rahim Zade textile plant in Isfahan, where workers were protesting against not being paid for nine months, and at the Parris factory in Sanandaj where workers were protesting at the employers’ demands for draconian concessions in their contracts.
