Bazaar merchants have been on strike for almost two months
NCRI – On Tuesday, September 27, Tehran Bazaar textile merchants staged a protest and demonstrated against Iranian regime’s plundering taxing policy. They chanted “Allah is Great” to protest the disregard shown for their demands. In solidarity, many other merchants also closed their shops. This protest movement took place while suppressive forces had threatened the merchants on previous days and had the area around bazaar under their control since Tuesday morning to prevent people from joining the striking bazaar merchants.
This protest movement by the textile bazaar began on August 1st. They demanded revocation of the 4% taxation on added value and tax fines due to late payments, correction of taxing coefficients, and modification of their business permits.
In the last two months, in addition to regime’s suppressive organs attacking the protesting merchants, other governmental institutions, including Organization of Tax Affairs, pressured the merchants on many occasions to end their strike. For example, striking merchants have been threatened with heavy fines for not opening their shops.
The bill of 4% tax on added value was ratified again in the parliament in July of this year. This bill which had been previously ratified three years ago in 2009 had been postponed due to strikes by merchants. According to this bill, all stages starting with the production stage up until the selling of textiles are to pay the 4% tax which cumulatively amounts to 20% that in turn will cause unreasonable increase in price of textiles.
This policy which pressures most the small merchants comes at a time that regime’s leaders, to gain political support from China and to rip astronomical profits for themselves, have suffocated Iran’s textile and clothing market with poor quality Chinese products. This in turn causes bankruptcies, shut downs, or drops in production in textile factories, produces thousands of unemployed workers, and results in unprecedented stagnation of the textile market and bankruptcy of the bazaar merchants.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
September 29, 2011