BBC — The government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been unnerved by something it is not used to confronting – a strike. Traders in the Grand Bazaar in Tehran, and bazaars in other major Iranian cities, have been protesting over a new 3% sales tax or value added tax (VAT). Free trade unions were banned in the early days of the Islamic Republic, so strikes are rare – though news of them occasionally surfaces, usually in some dispute over unpaid wages. But this protest is coming not from industrial workers, but from one of the most powerful groups in Iranian society. The market traders, or bazaaris, are credited with playing a key role in the Islamic revolution in 1979. So little wonder President Ahmadinejad is nervous at losing their support. The strikes began last week in the provincial cities of Isfahan, Tabriz and Mashad>>>
PHOITOGRAPHS BY Alireza Sotakbar
