Join the campaign to expel the Islamic regime of Iran from the International Labour Organisation (ILO)

In the early hours of Sunday 9 May, the Islamic authorities in Iran executed Farzad Kamangar and four other political prisoners. Farzad Kamangar was a teacher and a human rights activist, whose release had been the object of high profile campaigns in Iran and internationally over the past two years. The other four political activists who were executed on Sunday in Evin Prison were Ali Heydarian, Farhad Vakili, Shirin Alam-Houli and Mehdi Eslamian.

All five had been sentenced to death for their political opposition to the regime. The sentences were carried out in secret, without their families or lawyers being informed.

The bereaved families of the five have called for a demonstration outside Tehran University for Monday 10 May. Many are expected to join the protest, despite the brutality of the regime. At the time of writing, hundreds of Iranians in Europe have gathered in protest outside Islamic Republic’s embassies and consulates. In London, Paris and Frankfurt angry demonstrators have pelted the buildings with eggs, red paint and stones.

These latest political killings are part of the Islamic Republic’s brutal last attempts to cling on to power in the face of the anger, hatred and massive protest of the people in the past year and their clear demand for this despotic, medieval regime to go. However, these executions are not expected to dent the resolve of the people and will only deepen the loathing for this regime in Iran and around the world.

We call on all trade unions and human rights organisations and all those outraged at this barbaric act to condemn the Islamic regime of Iran in the strongest possible terms. In particular, we call on all to join the campaign of expulsion of this regime from the International Labour Organisation (ILO). This regime should not be allowed to seek legitimacy for itself through its continued membership of the ILO. A regime which jails, flogs, tortures and executes workers and political dissidents; a regime which executes children and stones women to death; a regime which shoots at unarmed demonstrators and rapes detained protesters should not be not allowed to set foot in any international body or forum, and least of all in an organisation bearing the name of worker. This regime belongs not in the ILO, but in an international court to answer for its crimes against humanity.

We call on the governing body of the ILO to annul the membership of the Islamic Republic forthwith on grounds of its flagrant violation of human rights and its denial of a human life to workers and the people in Iran. The expulsion of the Islamic regime of Iran from the ILO has been the demand of the workers in Iran, conveyed to the ILO on numerous occasions. It has been the object of repeated protests at the International Labour Conferences by our party’s International Labour Solidarity Committee. The appalling human rights violation by the regime in Iran have been brought to the attention of the ILO through tonnes of evidence submitted to its governing body and various committees by the world’s trade unions, by our party and by worker campaigns and activists year after year. However, unfortunately, the ILO executive has failed to heed these calls.

With the murder of Farzad Kamangar and four other political dissidents today, any bureaucratic excuse for the continued membership of this regime in the ILO becomes totally unacceptable; any diplomatic justification for continued ties with this regime will be viewed with utter disgust by the workers and people in Iran and by the world labour movement and progressive community. We call on the ILO to immediately withdraw its invitation of the government of Iran to the June 2010 International Labour Conference. We call on trade unions globally to support our call and urge the ILO to annul the Islamic Republic’s membership.

Finally, in the event that, despite worldwide protests, the ILO admits the Islamic Republic to the June conference, we call on the workers’ groups and delegates from all countries represented to walk out of any session at which the delegates of the Islamic regime of Iran may be present. As in previous years, our party, on behalf of the workers and people of Iran, who remain unrepresented in the ILO, will mobilise for powerful protests at the conference.

International Labour Solidarity Committee of the Worker-communist Party of Iran (ILSC-WPI)
Shahla Daneshfar, Coordinator
Bahram Soroush, Public Relations