Union complains to the ILO
WPI’s International Labour Solidarity Committee
21 Feb 2008

A further two workers, who were arrested at last year’s May Day ceremonies in the city of Sanandaj, have been fined and whipped, according to a report by the National Union of Dismissed and Unemployed Workers in Iran (Ettehadiye e Sarasari e Kargaran e Ekhraji va Bikaar).

Fares Gavilian and Habibollah Kalekani were detained and whipped on Tuesday when they attended the Court of Administration of Sentences in Sanandaj, following a summons.

Last Saturday, Seddigh Amjadi was beaten with ten strikes of the lash when he attended the court.

The sentences of lashes and fines come in a ruling by the Appeals Court of the Kurdistan Province against 11 worker activists arrested in last year’s May Day in Sanandaj. The workers are:

1- Seddigh Amjadi
2- Abbas Andaryani
3- Tayyeb Chatani
4- Fares Gavilian
5- Habibollah Kalekani
6- Eghbal Latifiollah
7- Tayyeb Mollaee
8- Yadollah Moradi
9- Mahiyoddin Rajabi
10- Khaled Savari
11- Seddigh Sobhani

In a letter to the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), the National Union of Dismissed and Unemployed Workers requested the ITUC to lodge a formal complaint with the ILO. It said:

“Whipping workers for taking part in May Day ceremonies is a most inhuman action aimed at destroying the gains of the world working class, for which millions of workers around the world have given up their lives and endured much hardship. The issuing and carrying out of the medieval sentence of whipping for workers in Iran is a warning to the world working class, and we expect that you dear friends and workers of the world will strongly and firmly react to it”.

In a statement yesterday, the union said the remaining sentenced workers had decided not to heed the summons for appearance at the Court of Administration, and will instead, together with their families, assemble outside the Court should they be threatened with detention by the security forces. It called on its members to join the families of the sentenced workers in protests.

ACTION REQUESTED:

Please publicise, as widely as possible, the news of this outrageous brutality by the Islamic government in Iran, condemning it in the strongest possible terms. Letters of protest may be sent to any or all of the following offices of the Islamic Republic government. Please forward a copy to International Labour Solidarity Committee of the Worker-communist Party of Iran (ILSC-WPI)

Supreme Leader:
Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei Office of the Supreme Leader
Islamic Republic Street
Shahid Keshvar Doust Street Tehran, Iran
Email

The President:
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad The Presidency
Palestine Avenue,
Azerbaijan Intersection
Tehran, Iran
Email

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