“Even Faith Couldn’t Save Them”: What Iran’s Desperate Workers Tell Us
In Islam, suicide is considered one of the gravest sins, threatening both this life and the next. For centuries, this belief has acted as a powerful barrier against hopelessness. Yet in Iran’s southern city of Mahshahr, despair has reached such extremes that even the fear of eternal punishment could not restrain two men.
Ahmad Asakere and Javad Rashedi, workers at the Razi Petrochemical Company, attempted suicide by climbing the company’s pipelines in protest against wage discrimination, arbitrary cuts, and years of repression. Both had previously been arrested for union activities. Their desperate act was stopped, but its meaning was unmistakable: when people risk eternal damnation to escape daily life, the state has failed them utterly. These men were not faithless; they were men stripped of options, dignity, and voice by a system that criminalizes the very act of demanding justice.
Workers at Razi Petrochemical—around 1,500 in total—have repeatedly protested wage inequality and unpaid benefits. Each time, authorities responded with threats, detentions, or empty promises. Leaders were barred from their workplaces, and union activism was branded a threat to “national security.” Hunger, fear, and humiliation are enforced in the name of order, yet the result is exploitation, not governance.
Mahshahr’s crisis is a microcosm of Iran today. Teachers strike over unpaid salaries, retirees demand pensions, oil workers protest unsafe conditions—each met with intimidation, arrests, or imprisonment. Labor rights are not recognized as rights; they are treated as threats. The desperation of Asakere and Rashedi underscores that Iran faces not merely economic injustice but an existential crisis of dignity and hope.
The Iranian regime claims to rule in the name of God, yet it has created conditions that drive believers to defy one of Islam’s most sacred prohibitions. A government that pushes its citizens into such despair cannot claim moral legitimacy. This regime does not govern through consent—it governs through fear. Repression has long been its strategy, but fear is brittle. Every arrest, every broken promise, every act of cruelty deepens the divide between rulers and the ruled. Mahshahr shows what happens when citizens are pushed beyond their limits: even faith is no longer enough to prevent the ultimate act of protest. A government that drives its people to choose death over life cannot endure indefinitely. Suppression may silence voices temporarily, but it cannot erase the truth: the regime’s foundation is hollow.
Mahshahr should not be dismissed as a local labor dispute. It is a window into the daily reality of life under the Iranian regime: poverty enforced by policy, dissent crushed by force, and despair met with silence. Silence abroad, however, is complicity. International human rights organizations must intensify monitoring and amplify the voices of workers. Targeted sanctions should hold accountable not only political elites but also companies and officials responsible for labor abuses. Global labor unions must stand in solidarity with Iranian workers, and international media must continue to report these stories, ensuring the plight of ordinary Iranians is not lost amid geopolitical coverage.
The attempted suicides in Mahshahr are not only a tragedy—they are a warning. A state that forces its citizens into such despair cannot endure forever. Legitimacy cannot be built on hunger, fear, and exploitation. History shows that regimes built on repression eventually collapse under the weight of their contradictions. The Islamic Republic is no exception. Mahshahr’s workers have spoken—not with words, but with their lives. The world cannot afford to ignore them.
Mayasa Albawi
September 1, 2025
