On 23rd October 2018, Hashem Khastar, retired headteacher and former member of Coordinating Council of Teachers’ Association of Khorasan province in Iran, left home to visit his garden but didn’t return on time and his cellphone didn’t answer.
The worried family finally found his abandoned car in suburb of city of Mashhad. The family searched everywhere for him and finally, on 24th October, found him in a psychiatric hospital. Hashem Khastar was admitted to the acute section of the men’s psychiatric hospital of Ebne Sina in Mashhad.
Hashem’s wife, Mrs Sedigheh Maleki, was not allowed to visit his husband, so she had to go to revolutionary court, visit deputy prosecutor, and go through lots of trouble to get permission to see her husband. She finally visited Hashem on 25th October and expressed worries about his situation.
In an open letter she appeals to international community and human right organisations to condemn the kidnapping of her husband, and demands to know why her healthy partner is sectioned, and wants to find out who ordered the kidnapping. She calls for immediate release of Hashem Khastar.
Reportedly, the arrest was made by Intelligence Protection Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The kidnapping of Hashem Khastar and imprisonment of other teachers’ workers’ activists in Iran is a systematic persecution and repression of activists who simply demand their very basic right such as being paid for the work they do and having the right to organise. The kidnapping of Hashem, as well as arrest of other activists and workers must be condemned.
Despite the fact that the Iranian authorities have been unable to stop workers from organising and demanding their legitimate rights, still by each arrest they hurt a family and leave the very “bitter taste of injustice” on individuals, on Iranian society, and on the international community of workers who want nothing but fairness.
Campaign to Free jailed Workers call on our international community to condemn the kidnapping and the arrests of workers in Iran and demand their immediate release.
Campaign to Free jailed workers in Iran
October 24, 2018