On September 1, a group of young people seeking employment in Gachsaran held a protest gathering in front of the newly established Lishter Refinery, protesting discrimination and the company’s recruitment process. The gathering was met with a brutal assault and gunfire by security forces attempting to disperse the protesters. According to reports, one of the young protesters was injured during the attack. These young people had previously also gathered at the site, demanding employment opportunities.
On the same day, a gathering of job-seeking youth in front of the Da’bal Khazaei Sugarcane Agro-Industry Company in Ahvaz also came under gunfire from the regime’s repressive forces. For the third consecutive day, young people from the villages of Moran and Omishieh Bozorg had gathered to protest discriminatory hiring practices by officials at the Da’bal Khazaei Sugarcane Company. Here too, the Islamic Republic’s hated and brutal security forces assaulted the young protesters and opened fire on them. There is currently no precise information regarding the number of people injured or arrested during this brutal assault.
One of the protesters taking part in the gathering said:
“These young people are all hungry. No one will hire us… We want jobs.”
The protesting youth are demanding employment, yet the only thing they and the people of the region receive from these industrial facilities is environmental pollution. Instead of bread, the Islamic criminals respond to young people with bullets.
We strongly condemn the brutal assault on job-seeking youth in Gachsaran and Ahvaz and the opening of fire on them, and we insist on the immediate release of those arrested. Gachsaran is one of the major centers of protests in the oil industry. Workers at oil facilities in the region are expected to voice their protest against this criminal act by the regime’s repressive forces. This brutality and criminality must be protested everywhere, and the Islamic rulers must be held accountable.
The Islamic regime is facing a deepening crisis and a bankrupt economy, the consequences of which fall more heavily than anyone else on working people. Protests in the oil industry, as well as among pensioners, nurses, and workers in various sectors, are expanding every day. It is in the face of this growing wave of protest that the Islamic regime seeks to prevent the spread of dissent through brutality and repression.
A regime that opens fire on young people seeking work is revealing the depth of its fear and terror of the people and their protest gatherings.