Arbitrary arrests and detentions, long prison terms, violent interrogations, beatings, even use of lashing to degrade and break down, denial of medical care to sick detainees, constant harassment in the form of court summons, heavy bails and daily threats against workers and their families, and the ultimate weapon of cutting workers off their livelihood by firing them, make up a brutal regime of systematic persecution of labour activists in Iran.

We, the undersigned, demand that persecution of workers in Iran and terror and violence against them must stop. Workers in Iran should be able to freely exercise their fundamental right to set up their own organisations, meet, assemble and protest as they wish, take strike action, organise and take part in rallies without fear of being arrested and thrown in jail.

At the moment, Mansoor Ossanlou, Ebrahim Madadi and Reza Shahabi, of the Union of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company, Ghorban Ahmadi, Ali Akbar Baghani, Hossein Bastani Nejad, Mahmoud Beheshti Langroodi, Rasoul Bodaghi, Mohammad Davari, Alireza Hashemi, Seyyed Hashem Khastar and Abdollah Momeni, of the Iranian Teachers’ Trade Association, and two other labour activists by the names of Behnam Ebrahimzadeh and Mehdi Farrahi Shandiz continue to be imprisoned in Iran. Another jailed teacher, Mr Abdolreza Ghanbari, has been sentenced to death for taking part in the anti-government demonstrations of 27 December 2009.

We demand

• The immediate and unconditional release of all jailed labour activists in Iran
• The reinstatement, with all lost pay backdated, of all those dismissed for carrying out legitimate union activity
• An end to persecution and terrorisation of workers in Iran

SIGN THE PETITION HERE.