Iranian bus drivers make symbolic protest

Bus drivers make symbolic protest, on a symbolic day

SMCCDI (Information Service)

January 8, 2006

Tehran's Collective Bus drivers organized, yesterday, a symbolic protest action by setting on their head lights during the day time. Most buses were decorated with placards calling for the creation of 'independent' unions and the immediate release of several arrested bus drivers.

Militiamen were seen trying to stop the buses and detaching the placards. But most users and Tehrani residents were seen supporting the drivers by showing the 'V' (Victory) sign or their rised fists.

The drivers' symbolic action coincided, astonishingly, with the seventieth anniversary of the "Iranian Women's Emancipation Law" which was adopted by the former Iranian regime, in 1935, and banned by the Islamic republic in 1979. Many residents and users, especially among females, were seen considering the bus drivers move as also a hidden support for the message of modernism, equality and secularism of the banned law.

Several other drivers were arrested following the yesterday's action despite all prior calls made by most of the world's unions in favor of Iranian workers and employees' rights which are disregarded by the theocratic system.

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