Iran: May Day Activists Still Detained.
international |
worker & community struggles and protests |
news report 
Monday May 12, 2008 14:18
by pat c
Concern grows over the continued detention of three union activists arrested in connection with this year’s May Day events in Iran. Eleven other detained workers have now been released, some on very considerable bail.
Sheis Amani, Javanmir Moradi and Taha Azadi, all founders and leading members of the newly formed Free Union of Workers in Iran are still detained. Sheis Amani, a veteran shop-steward from Sanandaj, was arrested ahead of May Day. Javanmir Moradi and Taha Azadi, member and substitute member, respectively, of the FUWI’s governing board, were arrested on 1st May as they came to take part in the May Day rally called by the union in Asaluye in the south of Iran.
Last year Amani spent 42 days in prison for taking part in May Day celebrations - was arrested on 23 April. His appeal hearing (along with that of his colleague Sedigh Karimi) over a two and half year prison sentence is pending.
Moradi and Azadi have been transferred to the Ministry of Intelligence offices in Bushehr. Sheis Amani is in detention in Sanandaj. The three are being held without access to their lawyers and families, and no charges are believed to have been formally filed against them.
By keeping these activists in detention, the authorities are not only sending a warning to workers who defied the May Day ban, but also targeting the newly formed union, which actively mobilised for May Day. All labour activity and union organising in Iran is banned. The Free Union was formed on 19 April this year, when a general assembly of the former National Union of Dismissed and Unemployed Workers voted unanimously to reconstitute itself as the Free Union of Workers in Iran.
You Can Help!
Please send letters of protest to the Islamic Republic government, calling for the immediate and unconditional release of all three activists. Send letters to:
Supreme Leader:
Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei
Office of the Supreme Leader
Islamic Republic Street
Shahid Keshvar Doust Street
Tehran, Iran
Email: info@leader.ir
The President:
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
The Presidency
Palestine Avenue,
Azerbaijan Intersection
Tehran, Iran
Email: dr-ahmadinejad@president.ir
The Head of the Judiciary:
Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi
Office of the Head of the Judiciary
Pasteur St.,Vali Asr Ave.,
South of Serah-e Jomhouri,
Tehran, Iran
Email: info@dadgostary-tehran.ir
Comments (2 of 2)
Jump To Comment: 1 2Latest news on the detained workers. The source is Free Union of Iranian Workers (Ettehadiye Azad e Kargaran e Iran) via LabourStart.
Javanmir Moradi and Taha Azadi continue to be detained by Iran’s Intelligence Ministry following their arrest on 1st May for taking part in this year’s May Day rally in the port town of Asaluye, in the south of Iran. Moradi and Azadi are veteran labour activists and founding members of the Free Union of Iranian Workers (Ettehadiye Azad e Kargaran e Iran).
Javanmir Moradi’s telephone call to Fouzieh Khalesi
On 12 May, Javanmir Moradi contacted his wife Fouzieh Khalesi from his mobile. Moradi asked her to talk in Farsi. He later asked her not to stay in the area and to leave. In response to Fouzieh’s question as to whether he had been given his glasses, Moradi said it did not matter. He gave the same reply to the question about his medicines. Javanmir also asked about the identity of those who were with her.
Fouzieh asked the Intelligence Ministry officers to receive Moradi’s medicines and to give them to him. However, they said they had a doctor themselves. It should be noted that Javanmir Moradi suffers from a nervous disorder, which makes him severely dependent on his glasses. Without his glasses and medicines, his health will be seriously damaged. They were prescribed by a specialist doctor for Moradi a long time ago.
Our union believes that Javanmir Moradi’s telephone conversation today with his wife was directed by the Intelligence Ministry officials of Bushehr, and holds the highest authorities of the country’s Judiciary and Bushehr’s Intelligence Ministry officials responsible for any physical or psychological damage to Javanmir Moradi. Our union once again calls on all labour and human rights organisations to protest urgently against the inhuman conditions created for Javanmir Moradi and Taha Azadi and their families and to demand their immediate and unconditional release.
The following is an extract from a letter sent by the TUC to the Iranian Ambassador to Britain. Full text at link.
I urge you strongly to convey to your Government yet again the deep concern of the Trades Union Congress about the arrests of trade unionists and the harassment of peaceful May Day demonstrations.
On 23 April, Shays Amani one of the founders of the National Union of Dismissed and Unemployed Workers was arrested. Shays Amani was arrested last year on May Day and is still awaiting the result of his appeal against his unfair sentence to two and a half years imprisonment.
On May Day itself several arrests and other acts of harassment took place across Iran. Three workers activists, Javanmir Moradi and Taha Azadi, members of the Free Union of Iranian Workers (FUIW), and another worker by the name of Saeed Hazrati were arrested in Asalouyeh in the south of Iran.
Other arrests took place in Ashnavieh city and Sanandaj. In Tehran where May Day events took place on 25 April, security forces and the police blocked the Chitgar Park and scared away participants. The park was shut down by 1000 security forces, but the workers managed to move to the Jahan-Nama Park and continue the celebrations there.
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