Iranian workers have held several unauthorized protests in the country to mark May Day, prompting security forces to break up the gatherings and arrest some of the participants.
The state-run Iran Labor News Agency (ILNA) said police dispersed a rally by teachers and other workers outside Tehran's parliament Tuesday, arresting at least six people. It said the protesters were demanding government action to address labor problems. The news agency quoted an intelligence source as saying authorities detained "only people who intended to create turmoil."
Elsewhere, an Iranian pro-labor union group reported a security crackdown on a May Day gathering in the Iranian Kurdish city of Saqqez. The overseas-based Iran Kargar website said plainclothes security forces broke up the event and detained several labor activists, taking them to an unknown location.
But there were no reported arrests at a May Day rally of hundreds of Iranians in another part of Tehran on Tuesday. Supporters of Iran's national trade union rallied outside the group's headquarters, known as Workers' House at the corner of Ravenmehr and Aboureyhan streets, holding banners and chanting slogans, such as "down with tyranny, long live laborers."
WATCH: Protesters Flock to May Day Rally
ILNA, which is run by the union, said the workers had wanted to demonstrate outside the health ministry to protest alleged wrongdoings by Health Minister Seyyed Hassan Ghazizadeh Hashemi. But it said the protesters remained outside the Workers' House because they lacked a permit to move elsewhere.
ILNA quoted a Workers' House leader, Hassan Sadeghi, as saying Iranian laborers want a "decent living and job security." Sadeghi also said that if Iran's Islamist leadership wants to remain in power, it must satisfy the workers' demands.
Iran has seen a wave of small-scale protests around the country this year by workers protesting nonpayment of wages, low salaries, job losses and water shortages.
This report was produced in collaboration with VOA's Persian Service.
