Esmail Bakhshi, the elected representative of workers’ council of sugar cane factory of Haft Tapeh, has published an open letter on 10th November 2018, addressed to Mr Sadeghi, head of intelligence services of Shush, and Mr Jafari, head of judiciary of Shush to condemn their harassment, defamation, persecution, and their behaviour in meetings with workers’ representatives.
In the letter Esmail Bakhshi exposes the attempts by the authorities to discredit worker representatives and highlights the rights of the workers and the freedoms they must have. Also the in the letter he reflects on financial relations among the authorities and the employers in Haft Tapeh.
The authorities, shamelessly, accuse the representatives of having agendas other than workers’ rights and being in touch with foreign agents and receiving money from them etc.. To which Esmail Bakhshi responds:
“I remind you again that I am a free human being and converse and meet with whoever with whatever belief I please. It is non of your business where I go or who comes to see me.
Secondly, there is nothing useful to you in my life that you keep looking into it and aparently are proud of spying on me. Esmail Bakhsi is a poor worker who lives with his wife and daughter in a 16 square meter room in his fathers’ house. He is “voice of worker”. He does not have a passport to travel abroad.
Thirdly, you have no right to spy on me and rest of the people. If you have any honour, why don’t you look into lives of your own corrupt thief embezzler ideological group and political party affiliates to see what’s happening there? They have a comfortable life and enjoying their full bank accounts in Western countries at the expense of lives of many and their children in Iran.
We are workers and poor but keep our heads high among the people. We are happy with their happiness and sad with theirs. What about you? Do you have the face to walk among the people? Isn’t result of 40 years of your rule anything but poverty, misery, pain and suffering, and suppression for the people?
Lastly, we are not afraid of you!”
The authorities have tried everything to break the workers and their council but they keep failing as the workers appreciate their organisation and their representatives. Thanks to the workers who fight for life, Haft Tapeh has moved on from slave-like workplace where some workers took their own life under pressure, to a “stronghold place of hope” for the workers in Iran where the desperate authorities are left with nothing but to “gossip” hoping to discredit the workers’ council and the representatives.
Esmail Bakhshi identifies himself as “free human being” and fights like one to save lives, improve lives, and to make a change for better. It’s our duty as “freedom loving human beings” to defend Esmail Bakhshi and other worker activists and representatives and to make sure they are free from intimidations, harassments, and threats.
The Islamic Republic of Iran must be condemned by all international human rights organisations specially labour organisations for its persecutions, intimidations, threats and abuse of workers in Iran.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has no regards for workers’ rights and must be expelled from ILO. In the past 40 years it has destroyed lives of many and international community must not allow it to continue.
We urge all to condemn Islamic regime and to demand immediate expulsion of Islamic Republic of Iran from ILO.