IRANIAN communists condemned authorities yesterday for sentencing workers to jail and a public lashing for taking part in anti-government protests that spread across the country in the summer. 

Tudeh Party of Iran international secretary Navid Shomali warned the only “crime” of the Heavy Equipment Production Company (Hepco) workers was to demand wage arrears and take action in defence of jobs at the company, which was privatised in September 2017.

He branded the sentences issued by the court to 15 Hepco workers — a public flogging and five-years in prison —  “inhumane,” calling on the Iranian working class to unite and intensify their struggles against the clerical regime.

Authorities have clamped down on growing anti-government dissent, which has been spreading across Iran, with harsh criticism of President Hassan Rouhani’s failure to deal with the country’s deepening economic crisis.

A wave of protests that saw women taking off their hijabs in defiance of the law was met with a severe clampdown by Iranian authorities as images of women waving their headscarves went viral.

Iran received global condemnation earlier this month after a court in Qazvin province threatened 17 striking lorry drivers with the death penalty.

Presiding judge Mohsen Karami warned that the court had requested capital punishment explaining that, if it was proven that they were “moharebs,” enemies of God, they could be sentenced to death.

Mr Shomali explained: “The regime is, on the one hand, using the judiciary as a tool to threaten workers and union activists who are moving towards more organised strikes in industrial production centres.
 
“On the other hand, it is trying to pave the way for the new minister of labour, appointed a few days ago, to create an atmosphere of intimidation.”

He said it was not a coincidence that the “unfair anti-worker verdicts” were issued by the regime’s unjust courts.

“These sentences and their public announcement are the continuation of the multifaceted policy of the regime and its security apparatus to neutralise and curb the growing protest of workers,” he said.

The Tudeh Party said in a statement that it strongly condemns the “inhumane” sentences of flogging and imprisonment for the 15 employees of the Hepco factory. 

“The only way to confront the suppressive actions of the regime is to intensify the struggle and use the efficient and rightful weapon of the working class, namely strikes within an organised and planned framework as well as proper slogans at the current stage,” it said.