Miners from Sangrood gather in Tehran to protest

Iran Press News: Translation by Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi.

Two hundred of the 620 miners from Sangrood (Province of Gilan) who have not been paid for an entire year [nor have received any benefits of any kind], made their way to Tehran to protest in front of Ahmadinejads offices on Saturday, Feb. 10th. They told the special workers reporter for the regime-run news agency ILNA that they are sick of the management’s insincere and endless promises that never glean any results. READ MORE

The miners spokesman said: "It's been more than a year that the mines management was faced with some kind of crisis and since then the mine has been shut down and as a result the rights and salaries of the miners was also suddenly terminated and 620 families in the town of Sangrood have been abandoned, ignored and live in utter misery. We protested and organized many sit-ins in front of the governor and county offices, to no avail...so we had no recourse but to get ourselves to Tehran in order to gather in front of the presidents office, hoping he would order the Minister of Industries to listen to and resolve our problems. We first gathered in front of the Ministry of Industries and stayed there till 10 P.M. We not only did not succeed in meeting with the Minister, he did not even send any of his deputies out to dialogue with us. Finally some insignificant functionary was sent out to make the same old promises to us." Addressing Ahmadinejad the miner continued: "Mr. President why doesn't your Minister have any regard for your orders to talk to protesting workers? We are exhausted...our new year, Norouz, is approaching* and a whole year without pay has us hanging our heads in shame in front of our hungry families; we are simply out of patience and ideas on how to feed ourselves...If they don't pay us, we won't leave the management a moments peace."

* Norouz is the traditional Iranian festival of spring which starts at the exact moment of the Vernal Equinox, the moment winter ends and spring officially begins. It is considered as the New Year among Persian. The name comes from Avestan for "new day". It is celebrated on or near the 21st of March. Norouz has been celebrated for at least 3000 years and is deeply rooted in the rituals and traditions of Zoroastrianism. Today, this festival is celebrated in Iran, Iraq, India, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan as well as members of the Bahaii faith.