ژورنال سایت خبری سیاسی ژورنال
English Journal is published on Fridays
PDF-English Journal-23 August 2025-No28
On the 22nd of September last year, 53 coal miners in Tabas lost their lives due to the blatant negligence of the mine’s owners, while 14 others were injured from inhaling methane gas.
Asghar Jahangir, spokesperson for the judiciary, announced that all five defendants (the employers) had been sentenced to three years in prison for the public aspect of the crime. The court, citing ‘corrective measures’, suspended the sentences of four of the defendants for two years, and the fifth defendant’s sentence was fully suspended for five years. The verdict has been appealed and is currently under review, with the final ruling expected soon.
Jahangir further claimed that the defendants had taken steps such as ‘improving safety measures at the mine (God willing!)’, supporting the victims’ families, following up on workers’ conditions and paying compensation through insurance coverage.
Following the disaster, the Islamic Republic’s labour minister shamelessly insisted: ‘The mine had fully complied with regulations and standards. It was completely mechanised, and the incident was one of those unforeseeable accidents.’ Poor employers, indeed! Another official, Masoud Pezeshkian, declared: ‘This was the result of sanctions and the ban on importing equipment into Iran.’ In other words, the mine accident was the fault of the enemy. Both, despite contradicting one another, tried to shield the employers and the state from responsibility.
But the miners themselves responded: ‘We warned that the mine was full of gas, but no one listened. The masks we were given were defective. Out of every 20 workers, only one received a proper filter mask. If conditions had been up to standard, this would not have happened.’ The father of Mohammad Javad Ghasemi said: ‘My son warned the mine officials that Block C of Tabas mine contained gas, but they told him and the other workers: either work under these conditions or sign your severance papers.’ No negligence from the employers, no blame for the government – the culprit, we are told, is the enemy!
This was no accident. It was a massacre – a crime both predictable and preventable. The employers are guilty, but the prime suspects are the judiciary, the repressive apparatus and the parliament that passes anti-worker laws, along with all their accomplices who have created this hell.
Editor: Patty Debonitas
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