NCRI – 1,000 workers of two textile factories, Farnakh and Mahnakh, walked out over their unpaid salaries, reported the state-run news agency ILNA on Sunday.  The two are located on the International Qazvin Highway, 165 kilometer northwest of Tehran. 

"The workers blocked the highway and burned used tires to get the attention of travelers," said one of the workers to ILNA.

However, the government appointed management did not pay any attention to workers protests of textile factories and said that the workers will be paid next year.

Hundreds of workshops and factories went on strike over payments in the past year. Factories such as Haft-Tapeh sugar cane mill, Kiyan-Tire making car tires, Iran Khodro car manufacturer are some of the biggest with tens of thousands of workers.
 
In the past decade, most of Iran's factories have been privatized by the mullahs' regime opening the doors to even more suppressive measures against the Iranian workforce.  The new managements were appointed by the government without adequate protection for workers and their families who make the most venerable part of the population.

peykeiran.com

By Robert Evans

GENEVA, Dec 29 (Reuters) - Iranian opposition leaders on Monday claimed victory in their campaign to ensure continued U.S. protection for 3,500 fellow exiles in a camp north of Baghdad that the Iraqi government says it wants to close.

Speaking as a five-month demonstration in Geneva in support of the camp in the township of Ashraf concluded, they said a statement from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad meant the people there could stay on in safety.

"This is a real victory," Mohammed Mohaddesin, chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the French-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) told reporters outside the United Nations European headquarters.

"It means the United States has recognised its responsibility to ensure the safety and security of our people in Ashraf," said Ali Safavi, another official of NCRI, political wing of the People's Mujahideen, or PMOI.

"We can now halt our sit-in. We have got what we wanted."

The embassy statement in Baghdad said U.S. forces will maintain a presence in Ashraf, which has sheltered exile Iranians for 20 years, after Iraq takes over responsibility for the camp on January 1.

On December 21, the Shi'ite-led Iraqi government told the camp's residents that it planned to close Ashraf down and that they had to leave the country. The exiles feared they would be forcibly returned to Iran, where they say they face death.

The PMOI has been listed as a terrorist group in the United States and Europe since the late 1990s. The Iraqi government, which is friendly to Shi'ite Iran, itself regards the PMOI as a terrorist grouping.

But a Swiss lawyer for NICRI said the U.S. decision to stay at the camp and a European Union court ruling in early December against a Brussels move to freeze the PMOI's assets indicated the Western front against the group was crumbling.

"We might see a stronger move in the next few days," declared the lawyer, Marc Henzelin. The outgoing U.S. administration of George W.Bush could decide to remove the PMOI from its terror blacklist before handing over, he added.

The U.S. statement said that U.S. forces, who have protected the camp since PMOI fighters there handed over their weapons in 2003, would help Iraq "in carrying out its assurances of humane treatment of the residents of camp Ashraf."

The United States, together with the Iraqis, would work with international organisations "to assist the camp residents in securing a safe future," it added. (Additional reporting by Peter Graff in Baghdad; editing by Keith Weir)

Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Dec. 29 – Iranian authorities hanged a man in public in the restive province of Sistan-va-Baluchistan, south-east Iran, state media reported on Monday.

The report by the semi-official daily Kayhan identified the man as Abdol-Rahman Baluch Zehi. It did not say when the execution took place.

It quoted Colonel Mohammad-Reza Mortaz, a local commander of the state security forces, as saying that Baluch Zehi had killed two people in Nikshahr in October.

Iranian authorities routinely execute dissidents on bogus charges such as armed robbery and drug trafficking.

Sistan-va-Baluchistan Province is home to Baluchis, a predominantly Sunni Muslim ethnic minority.

Iran has witnessed escalating unrest since 2006 in areas populated by Baluchis, who complain of discriminatory and repressive policies by the theocratic regime.

Since 2006, Iranian authorities have stepped up executions in the restive province in what many Baluchis believe is a response to a spate of attacks by dissidents on government and security officials.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - A group of Iranian hardline clerics is signing up volunteers to fight in the Gaza Strip in response to Israel's air strikes that have killed at least 300 Palestinians, a news agency reported on Monday.

"From Monday the Combatant Clergy Society has activated its website www.rohaniatmobarez.com for a week to register volunteers to fight against the Zionist regime (Israel) in either the military, financial or propaganda fields," the semi-official Fars news agency said.

Israel patrols the coastal waters around Gaza and has declared areas around the enclave a "closed military zone."

The hardline Iranian group, which is headed by some leading clergy, says it has no affiliation with the government and was formed shortly after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a religious decree to Muslims around the world on Sunday, ordering them to defend Palestinians in Gaza against Israeli attacks "in any way possible."

A religious decree is an official statement by a high-ranking religious leader that commands Muslims to carry out its message. While there is no religious and legal force behind it, Khamenei is respected by many Iranian and non-Iranian Shi'ites.

Iran refuses to recognise Israel, which accuses Tehran of supplying Hamas Islamists with weapons. Iran denies the claim, saying it only provides moral support to the group.

Israel said the strikes, that have killed 307 Palestinians, were launched in response to almost daily rocket and mortar fire from the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip after the Islamist Hamas group ended a six-month cease-fire a week ago.

Fars said the hardline group provided volunteers with a registration document called "Registration form for dispatching volunteers to Gaza." It said more than 1,100 people so far had registered for military service against Israel.

Khamenei said on Sunday that whoever was killed in the fight to defend Palestinians was "considered a martyr."

Iran will send its first ship carrying aid to the Gaza Strip on Monday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi said.

"Iran has dispatched its first plane load of aid, including medicine, to Gaza on Sunday. The second cargo is on the verge of being dispatched," Qashqavi told reporters on Monday. "The first aircraft arrived in Egypt last night."

Israel, which patrols the coastal waters around Gaza, tightened its blockade of the Gaza Strip two years ago after Hamas won a parliamentary election.

The Jewish state turned back a Libyan ship from delivering humanitarian supplies to Gaza earlier this month.

Tens of thousands of Iranians protested on Monday to condemn the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, which began with air strikes on Saturday.

Protesters burnt Israeli and U.S. flags and demanded a stronger response from international organisations to stop Israel's raids, a Reuters witness said.

They also called on Islamic countries to boycott "Zionist companies."

(Reporting by Hossein Jaseb; Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Richard Balmforth)