Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company: We demand the release of educational workers (teachers) from prisons and the annulment of judicial decisions against them.
Educational workers (teachers) are among the most honorable and hardworking people in the community who teach, with the least facilities, the children of this country, but because of low wages they are deprived of the minimum human essentials. Different types of employing teachers, i.e. contracts and hourly paid casual teaching, similar to other parts of the workforce, have destroyed their job security, and their economic demands are ignored.
Instead of answering their demands and solving the problems of our cultural and educational workforce, they treat the teachers’ unions and their protests with police and intelligence and judicial attacks.
Mr. Esmail Abdi, a member of the board of directors of Tehran Teachers’ Trade Association, who had been released on bail after a hunger strike and hospitalization, was arrested by security forces in front of his house on Thursday, Mordad 5th, 1396*, and taken to Evin Prison. Mr. Mohsen Omrani, an activist of the teachers’ union in Bushehr, has been in jail since Ordibehesht of this year**, despite his physical health problems, due to his trade union protests. More recently, another teacher activist, Mr. Taher Ghaderzadeh, has been sentenced to three years suspended imprisonment. Other teachers have also been summoned and temporarily released on bail. Teachers’ union activists are constantly threatened with imprisonment.
The Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company condemns all judicial sentences against the teachers of the country and calls for the immediate and unconditional release of Esmail Abdi and Mohsen Omrani. The syndicate also condemns persistence of security force’s interferences and judicial sentences against other workers from different unions and independent labour organizations, including the sentences against Ebrahim Madadi, Reza Shahabi and Davoud Razavi, members of the board of directors of the Vahed Syndicate, and calls for the annulment of all sentences against them and other labour and trade union activists.
The harassment of workers and labour activists must be stopped!
July 30, 2017 (Mordad 8, 1396)
Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company:
Original link: http://vahedsyndica.com/archive/2750
Translated by IASWI.
*Apologies for using two different arrest dates in our previous update. The correct date for Esmail Abdi’s most recent arrest is early morning (7:30 am) of Thursday, Mordad 5th, 1396, Tehran Time. This exact time in many countries converts to Thursday, July 27, 2017. Therefore, please disregard July 26th because July 27, 2017 is the more accurate date of Esmail Abdi’s recent arrest (IASWI).
** Mr. Mohsen Omrani has been sentenced to a one-year imprisonment for “propaganda against the system” and a two-year ban on teaching jobs within the public school system. The start date of his imprisonment was May 3, 2017 in the southern City of Bushehr.
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