Wives of Striking Iranian Bus Drivers Appeal for Support

Eli Lake, The New York Sun:

As Iran's standoff with the world over nuclear weapons intensifies, the wives of the country's striking bus drivers are appealing for food and money to support their families, according to e-mail interviews yesterday.

The women were ordered not to talk to the international media by the court that ordered their husbands' arrest. The state affiliated militia, the Basij, also warned them not to appeal for funding from Iran's exiles. But the plight of the 1,000 striking drivers is so dire, the families are now ignoring these warnings.

"We are not allowed to receive any financial assistance from anyone, especially from the United States, but our finances are very bad and we are asking anyway," the wife of Yaghub Salimi, a strike leader, said yesterday. READ MORE

The strike is worth watching. While President Ahmadinejad on Saturday threatened to withdraw Iran from the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, and technicians have removed U.N. seals from enrichment facilities, the tenacity of the strikers is a reminder that the regime lacks support at home.

The strike has also caught the attention of Iran's student movement, dispersed and weakened recently due to the arrest of its leaders. If unrest in Tehran spreads, it could cause the government to collapse.

"The regime is stunned by this strike," dissident author and student activist AmirAbbas Fakhravar said in a phone interview from Iran. "Now we the students are trying to collaborate with them. Things are shaping up."

The Sherkat e Vehad trade union called a strike to protest the imprisonment of 300 of its members on January 25. But the roots of the action go back to May 9, when the union's leader, Massoud Osanlou, made his first demand for wages not paid, more benefits, and increased pay.

For this act of defiance he was beaten by anti-riot police and hospitalized. According to an associate of his, Basij forces stormed his home and used a carpet knife to cut out a piece of his tongue. Although he had the piece surgically reattached, it has since fallen out and he is now in Evin prison and can barely talk or eat. The strike has attracted the attention of the AFL-CIO and the Teamsters, who in January appealed to President Ahmadinejad to release jailed unionists.

Today, according to three strikers' wives (they asked for anonymity because of regime threats), 1,000 drivers are in jail. The regime has replaced them with members of the Basij and other security personnel. One striker has died of a heart attack in prison.

Mrs. Salimi yesterday said many families have been targeted by the Basij. She said they kicked in her door at 3.30 a.m on January 25 and beat the bottom of her feet. They threw her 2-year old daughter across the room, causing the baby to cut her lips. They were taken to Evin prison where she spent three nights in solitary confinement and was questioned every night. Mrs. Salimi and her family were only released when her husband turned himself in.

Saeed Mortazavi, the judge prosecuting the strikers, should be a familiar name to Iran's opposition. He prosecuted dissident journalist Akbar Ganji and mocked his hunger strike last summer. According to Mr. Ganji's wife, Mr. Mortazavi arranged the force feeding of her husband last August. The last reformist legislature blamed the same judge for the conditions that led to the murder and rape of Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi.

"Right now, all the striking bus drivers are either in prison are out of jobs," Mr. Fakhravar said. "They have been fired." He said that Tahkim Vahdat, Iran's oldest student opposition group, met with the union in January, but the meetings have stopped since the recent crack down.

Despite the repression, Mr. Fakhravar is optimistic. "Once the U.N. sanctions begin and the embassies begin to close, in a matter of days not weeks the opposition will come together. Even some people that work for the regime and the families who hate the mullahs will come into the streets." He said the wisest course would be for the western world to lend opposition leaders a podium and consider giving them money.

In November 2002 he was sentenced to eight years in prison after publishing "This Place is Not a Ditch," a critique of the Islamic Republic. He was released last year and has been planning to leave to a neighboring country to continue his opposition at less risk. He said prior attempts to leave Iran have been foiled because neighboring countries refused to give him safe harbor.