Free all jailed workers now!

Iranian Workers' Solidarity Network, 26/06/09

Following the rigged election many other peaceful protesters have also been imprisoned. On 18 June two shifts at Iran Khodro stopped work in protest at the treatment of demonstrators. The Vahed bus drivers said that they want June 26 to be turned into a day of action for human rights in Iran. This clearly shows that the workers see that their struggle for labour and trade union rights is joined up with the general struggle for human rights and democracy.

Eight weeks ago, on May Day, Iranian workers took a step that was unprecedented in the past 28 years. They managed to put aside all their divisions and differences. Nine trade unions and workers organisations (Trade Union of the Workers of the Vahed Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company, Haft Tapeh Sugar Cane Company Workers' Trade Union, Free Trade Union of Iranian Workers, Founding Committee for Re-launching the Trade Union of Building, Painting and Decoration Workers, the Labour Rights Association, Co-operation Council of Labour Organisations and Activists Co-ordination Committee for the Formation of Labour Organisations, Pursuit Committee for the Formation of Free Labour Organisations and a group of Labour Activists), together with the Women's Council, formed a joint May Day Organising Committee.

The Iranian regime recognised this as a danger to itself. It arrested over 150 workers and labour and human rights activists who had gathered in a Tehran park to commemorate International Labour Day. The activists had not even begun their ceremony before they were beaten, bundled into vans and taken away. The swoop by the security forces was so frenzied that they even beat up women and children and arrested many who just happened to be in Laleh Park at the time! Although this outrage provoked an outcry from the international labour movement, it was, sadly, just another chapter in the long history of abuse and persecution of the labour movement - and the movements of students, women, the youth, national minorities and so on - for their basic rights and dignity.

While trade union and human rights activists and socialists in many countries knew about the true nature of the Iranian government, the events of the past two weeks have totally exposed its brutality to a much wider public. All over the world everyone, from the workers to students and youth, now knows that the Iranian regime is one of the most undemocratic in the world. Not only does it trample on every basic rights of the mass of the Iranian people, it also cannot observe the democratic rights of its own weaker faction! The members of this faction, including some former ministers and high officials of the regime, have been arrested in the middle of the night without any warrant or identification of the detaining officers, had their house searched, their family harassed and then not heard of for days. Even though the ex-ministers' treatment in jail will be much more mild, their illegal arrests have highlighted the every day repressive methods that confront workers, women, students, teachers, journalists, writers and artists, national minorities, human rights and civil activists (and anyone else who might want to question any aspect of social life under this regime and want to improve it).

The Iranian regime has been gradually releasing the May Day detainees. Just two are now believed to be still in jail: Mehdi Farahi Shandiz and Said Rostami. But Iran's jails hold many other workers: Mansour Osanloo, Ebrahim Madadi, Farzad Kamangar, Salam Ghaderi and many others. Recently five leaders of the Haft Tapeh Sugar Cane Company Workers' Trade Union were sentenced to a year in prison. We call for the immediate and unconditional release of all jailed trade unionists and labour activists in Iran.

• Free all jailed workers now!

• The right to strike is an absolute right!

Iranian Workers' Solidarity Network
26 June 2009

Nearly all women activists arrested on
May Day in Tehran released

Iranian Workers’ Solidarity Network, 01/06/09

1 June 2009

Except for Jelveh Javaheri, a women’s rights activist, all the women arrested in Tehran’s Laleh Park on May Day have now been released on bail. Around 30 women were set free pending further proceedings by the Iranian regime’s legal authorities.

Jelveh Javaheri is a postgraduate sociology student and a member of the One Million Signatures Campaign. Over the past few years the Iranian regime’s security forces have arrested Jelveh Javaheri several times. She nevertheless continues to campaign for the women of Iran to have equal rights with men.

In addition to Jelveh Javaheri there are around 30 other activists and workers detained in Evin prison. We will continue to campaign until all those detained on May Day, and all other workers and activists, are released from the dungeons of the Iranian regime.

An injury to one is an injury to all!

Enthusiastic welcome for released May Day detainees

On Sunday evening four of the International Labour
Day detainees were released from Evin prison

Pursuit Committee for the Formation of
Free Labour Organisations, 07/06/09
Translated by: Iranian Workers’ Solidarity Network

Jelveh Javaheri, Shahpoor Ehsanirad, Assadollah Poorfahad and Mohammad Ashrafi were released in the late evening of Sunday into the enthusiastic and delighted welcome of those greeting them by the exit gate of the Evin detention centre and returned to the bosom of their families.

The May Day detainees were released after a number of their relatives who were arrested earlier for protesting outside the Revolutionary Court were released on bail on Saturday June 6. Ms Javaheri, Mr Ehsanirad, Mr Poorfahad and Mr Ashrafi were also released on bail.

Those gathered outside Evin prison had to wait in anticipation until the last hours of Sunday 7 June. According to information from Evin prison, Mr Alireza Saghafi was also to be released, but because of another trial was summoned to court from ward 209. The daily peaceful gatherings of workers and the families of the May Day detainees in front of the door of the Revolutionary Court, that began 38 days ago and have continued until now, will continue until all the detainees have been released.

It is expected that until the final days of the start of the election the other prisoners arrested in Laleh Park including Said Yuzi, Mehdi Farahi-Shandiz, Alireza Saghafi, Mohsen Saghafi, Jafar Azimzadeh and others, and seven members of the Metalworkers-Mechanics’ Trade Union, will also be released from prison.

While welcoming the release of the labour/civil [rights’] activists, the Pursuit Committee for the Formation of Free Labour Organisations, together with the families of the May Day detainees, will strive resolutely for the freedom of all those jailed on International Labour Day.