Iran Feature: The Week in Civil Society --- Another Day Older and Deeper in Debt (Arseh Sevom)

Iranian workers protest over unpaid wage in front of the Ministry of Industry, 14 August 2012

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Another Day Older and Deeper in Debt

According to Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) [fa], the Saipa car factory in Kashan has dismissed more than 10,000 employees. Saipa in Tehran has also reduced the shifts from three to just one. Asr-e Iran reports that the automobile production rate has been reduced by 66.2%.

More than 600 steel workers demonstrated in front of the Ministry of Labor, demanding five months of unpaid wages. The protest was a follow-up

to the workers' claim of eight months of unpaid salaries --- despite a settlement, only three months were paid.

About 200 members of Tehran’s Metropolitan Vahed Bus Company gathered Wednesday in front of the Tehran Municipal Building to protest discrimination in pay. They also called for the dismissal of the managing director of the company and an investigation into their unpaid salaries.

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The Latest from Iran (12 October): No News is Regime News

See also The Latest from Iran (11 October): A President Under Fire

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1704 GMT: Your Tehran Friday Prayer Update. More information on Hojatoleslam Seddiqi's jab at the Government in today's sermon:

Had our authorities devised better policies, our costs would have been reduced....Executing the subsidy reforms was courageous, but they handed out cash to the people, and infused it in the market rather than strengthening production. The money was not used to boost production....And this has some side effects....They should already have thought about it. We hope that the problems people are facing and some are using as a pretext to help the enemy will not be repeated.

"Paying attention to the issue of production, using Iranian products and [supporting] the national production is a necessary [issue], and the order of religion, God and the Quran. God would never be happy with the Muslim community of believers...being in the shadow of infidels. We are a blessed nation, and they should not dominate us economically.

(Hat tip to Iran Tracker)

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