May 1st, International Workers’ Day, is not merely a symbolic date, it is a moment to echo the accumulated rage and silenced struggles of the oppressed, whose voices are heard not through official media, but in the reverberation of bullets and the wreckage left by bourgeois civilization. Under the rule of the Islamic Republic in Iran, Kolbars and Sukhtbars stand as two stark symbols of the working class who bear the brunt of this compounded oppression. Kolbars in Kurdistan and Sukhtbars in Baluchistan are not only victims of an exploitative economic system but are also the wounded of colonial policies that target their lives and identities.
According to data collected by Kolbarnews, from May 1, 2024, to May 1, 2025, at least 125 Kolbars were killed or injured along the Kurdish border zones. Of these, 45 Kolbars lost their lives and 80 others were wounded. 96 cases (77%) were due to direct gunfire by Islamic Republic military forces. Among the victims were five children under the age of 18, children forced to carry heavy loads on deadly paths instead of attending school. Kolbari is not a profession but the outcome of a deliberate destruction of local economies and the political-military occupation of Kurdistan by a regime that sustains its power through repression and instability.
In Baluchistan, the situation is even more catastrophic and violent. In just the first three months of 2025, 34 Baluch Sukhtbars were killed and 41 others injured. Like Kolbari, Sukhtbari is the direct result of systematically dismantled economic infrastructures, imposed poverty, and the historic marginalization of the Baluch people. These workers are daily targets of security forces and gamble their lives on death roads. This violence is not accidental, it is policy; a calculated strategy to suppress communities that defend their identity, language, and dignity.
Nationwide labor statistics paint yet another grim portrait of class oppression in Iran. From May 2023 to May 2024, at least 2,079 workers died in workplace accidents, and 16,273 others suffered serious injuries. These shocking figures reflect the lack of job security, absence of independent oversight, and the disregard for workers’ lives under the Islamic Republic’s neoliberal, rentier economy. In such conditions, efforts to organize, educate, and form independent labor unions are met with brutal suppression.
Labor activists such as Reyhaneh Ansarinejad, Reza Shahabi, Anisha Asadollahi, Keyvan Mehtadi, Sepideh Gholian, Fouad Fathi, Sharifeh Mohammadi, and Morteza Sidi remain imprisoned solely for defending the labor and class rights of workers. Sharifeh Mohammadi, a member of the Committee for Coordinating Help to Form Labor Organizations, has even been sentenced to death for her peaceful and public activism, an act that represents not a judicial verdict but an open declaration of war against the working class and any form of independent labor organizing.
Kolbarnews reaffirms the necessity of unified class struggle, declaring that the oppression faced by Kolbars in Kurdistan and Sukhtbars in Baluchistan is the same force threatening all workers across Iran. Inequality and exploitation are structurally tied to national oppression and political centralization, forming the core of this corrupt and repressive order. Liberation is impossible without a rupture from this system and a united front of the oppressed across every nation, language, and region.
We recognize May 1st not as a ceremonial day, but as a battlefield for true working-class solidarity, a day where the voices of Kolbars and Sukhtbars, imprisoned teachers and construction workers, oppressed women and marginalized students unite to announce the vision of a new world. A world free from the injustice and inequality imposed by capitalism. International Workers’ Day is the day for all of us for the Kolbar, the Sukhtbar, the factory worker, the jailed teacher, and for all those who struggle for bread, freedom, and equality.
