A great personal risk, truckers across Iran parked their rigs in the streets and refused to transport goods and materials in solidarity with protestors over the death of a young woman who refused to cover her face. The country’s so-called “Morality Police” grabbed 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who later died in custody. Her death sparked nationwide protests and labor strikes. Truckers drivers appear to be in the thick of the cultural revolution that has Iran’s “Mullahs” backpedaling.
“The people of Iran live on a sea of oil and gas, but you thieves don’t let anything reach the people,” a Union of Truck Owners and Drivers of Iran press release reportedly stated.
Merchants, store owners, manufacturing workers, and students, among thousands of others launched a three-day strike Dec. 7, on the eve of National Student Day and nearly 80 cities participated. Reports indicate government officials offered what can only be called bribes to return to work. Truckers were offered discounted fuel and other perks because their impact helped grind the national economy to a standstill.
“I think it is appropriate now to declare that I oppose my brother’s actions and I express my sympathy with all mothers mourning the crimes of the Islamic Republic,” Badri Hosseini Khamenei, sister of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, reportedly stated. “The crimes of this system, the suppression of any dissenting voice, the imprisonment of the most educated and the most caring youth of this land, the most severe punishments, and the large-scale executions began from the very beginning.”
Government officials indicated they would disband the Morality Police who drive white vans and grab unsuspecting citizens, claiming they participated in practices contrary to Islam. Women who decline to cover their faces in public are frequently black bagged and held without family members being contacted. Citizens remain skeptical that the government is only tapping the brakes until the social unrest wanes.
“Well, the reports of strikes that we’ve seen so far are within truck drivers, different shopkeepers. It would be significant. I mean, the morality police are a branch of the municipal police. They roam the streets in white vans and apprehend women who they believe are not following the country’s dress codes properly,” New York University Associate Professor Azadeh Moaveni reportedly said. “They may apprehend young men who seem to be wearing overly Westernized hairstyles or man buns or things that don’t conform with proper sort of Islamic comportment. Really, it’s a mechanism of social control.”
More than 30,000 Iranians have been arrested for protesting the regime and 700 have been killed. Reports coming out of Iran have not specified whether truck drivers are among the incarcerated or dead.
Sources: npr.org, foreignpolicy.com, jpost.com
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