Truck drivers in Iran enter sixth day of rare nationwide strike

Al Arabiya

5 days ago

Truck drivers across Iran were on Tuesday pressing the sixth day of a strike rare in its length and magnitude, seeking better conditions in a sector crucial for the economy in the Islamic Republic.
After starting last week in the southwestern port city of Bandar Abbas, the strike action has spread across the country, according to reports by monitoring groups on social media and Persian-language media based outside Iran.
The truck drivers are protesting a rise in insurance premiums, poor road security, high fuel prices and low freight rates, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said.
It posted images showing what it said were dozens of stationary trucks in the central city of Isfahan and in Shiraz in the south, while reports also indicated similar actions in Tehran province and Kermanshah in the west.
It was not immediately possible to independently verify the images.
Strikes do take place on occasion in the Islamic Republic, whose labor law does allow for such stoppages. However this strike is unusual in terms of its duration and nationwide scale.
The Dadban rights monitor wrote on social media that there had already been instances of security forces attacking the drivers' protests and cited Kamran Mirhaji, the southern Fars province prosecutor, as saying a number of people 'who prevented the movement of trucks' had been arrested.
Iran International TV, based outside the country and often critical of the authorities, broadcast videos it said had been sent from inside the country showing roads deserted that would normally have been packed with trucks.
Inside Iran, the hardline daily Kayhan meanwhile lashed out at what it described as 'opportunistic elements' attempting to exploit the situation over the 'economic and professional grievances of the country's road freight operators.'
Road transport is critical to food supply in the vast country.
Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf was quoted as saying truckers were a 'key link in the production and supply chain' and urging the government to act swiftly.