Breathing in Confinement

8 November 2025
News Category: Workers & Guilds

Breathing in Confinement — At least 19 protest gatherings were held in various cities across the country by different groups, including nurses, workers, drivers, retirees, and housing applicants.

According to Breathing in Confinement, the news outlet of the Prisoners’ Rights League in Iran, in Yasuj a group of nurses gathered in front of the Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Governor’s Office. Holding placards, they demanded the immediate payment of eight months of wage arrears and protested difficult working and living conditions and ongoing economic pressures. According to the protesters, repeated promises by officials to improve payment conditions have not been fulfilled.

A group of retirees from the banks from various cities gathered in Tehran in front of the central headquarters of the banks, chanting slogans such as “Retiree, raise your voice, shout for your rights” and “Death to liars.” They criticised the government and banking institutions for repeated broken promises, low pensions, and the failure to address their sectoral demands, and called for fairness in payments and an improvement in their livelihoods.

A group of deposit-holders of Farda Motor gathered in front of the Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade. Referring to long delays in vehicle delivery and the company’s lack of accountability, the protesters chanted against “false and deceitful promises” and demanded an immediate determination of the status of their contracts.

In Arak, applicants to the National Housing Plan in the city of Mohajeran gathered in front of the Provincial Directorate of Roads and Urban Development of Markazi Province. The housing applicants protested the slow progress of the project, the absence of transparent contracts, the failure of officials to respond, and ambiguity in costs, and demanded accountability and acceleration in the project’s implementation.

Drivers of municipal machinery in Kermanshah gathered in front of the Governor’s Office to protest four months of unpaid wages. Parking their vehicles along the roadside, they stopped work and protested the trampling of their rights and the inability of city management to secure those rights.

In Tabriz, members of the “Parla Eskan Tabriz New” housing cooperative gathered in front of the District 2 Deeds Registry. They protested five years of limbo regarding their plots in the “Sari-Zemi” area, chanted slogans, and demanded an immediate determination of the status of the deeds and clear answers from officials.

In the Asaluyeh region and related operational areas, workers of the South Pars Gas Complex in Refineries One to Twelve, as well as the Bahregan operational area, held gatherings simultaneously. The workers protested the incomplete payment of wages, injustice in payments, inflation and high prices, the non-implementation of pay harmonisation, and the transfer of health services in the oil industry to the private sector. They demanded full implementation of operational-area allowances, removal of salary caps, full payment of end-of-service benefits, cancellation of pension deductions, the return of unlawfully deducted taxes, and full implementation of Article 10 of the Law on the Duties and Powers of the Ministry of Oil.