Following the recent arrest of six labour
activists in the city of Sanandaj in the west of Iran, another worker by the
name of Ghaleb Hosseini, a member of the Co-ordinating Committee to Help Form
Workers’ Organisations, was arrested on 19 March. The activists arrested earlier
in the month are Vafa Ghaderi, Seyed Khaled Hosseini, Ali Azadi, Behzad
Farajollahi, Hamed Mahmoud Nejad and Sharif Saed Panah.
The
first five activists are also members of the Co-ordinating Committee to Help
Form Workers’ Organisations, and were arrested on 7 March. Sharif Saed Panah is
an executive member of the Free Union of Iranian Workers and an organiser of
the 30,000-signature pay-rise campaign. He was arrested on 10 March.
All
these activists are being held purely for their union activities, and must be
released immediately and unconditionally.
Arbitrary
arrests and detention, long prison terms following fabricated trials, torture
and abuse, denial of medical care, threatening the families of the detainees,
imposition of extortionate bails, and so on, are part and parcel of a programme
of persistent persecution which the Islamic regime in Iran practises against
workers demanding their rights and attempting to organise.
Meanwhile, families of the detained workers have
continued their protest gatherings outside the Intelligence Ministry building
in the city of Sanandaj.
Only
forceful protests in Iran and internationally can put an end to this flagrant
denial of worker rights and persecution of labour activists.
Free Them Now! calls for the immediate and unconditional
release of all jailed workers and all political prisoners in Iran.
23 March 2013
Free Them
Now! Campaign to Free
Jailed Workers in Iran
Shahla Daneshfar (shahla_daneshfar@yahoo.com)
Bahram Soroush (bahram.soroush@gmail.com)
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