Ismail Gerami, a retired teacher, was arrested by security forces for participating in a gathering of retirees in protest of the difficult living conditions, with an evening raid on his home on April 5, 2021. He was then tried in Branch 26 of the “Islamic Revolutionary Court” on charges of “conspiracy to commit a crime against national security” and was sentenced to a total of five years in prison, 74 lashes and a fine of two million tomans (ca $475). This sentence was met with widespread protests by retirees, teachers, and various sections of the working people and the public, and all demand the immediate release of Ismail Gerami and the closure of his security case.
Flogging, this heinous form of Islamic punishment, is part of the Islamic Republic’s judicial system. The Islamic regime has in many occasions sentenced workers, teachers, retirees, and protesting people to flogging for their struggles, and has sometimes carried out this barbaric sentence on them. For example, workers activists have been flogged several times for celebrating May Day. An example of this was carrying out 74 lashes on Davood Rafiei, a fired worker at Pars Khodro car manufacturing Company on November 26, 2020, for protesting his dismissal, unemployment and poverty.
The world must raise its voice against such barbarism. Ismail Gerami must be released and the security case against him should be dropped.
Free Them Now, Campaign to free jailed workers in Iran, calls on all workers unions and international human rights organizations, to condemn the Islamic regime for arresting, harassing, and torturing workers, teachers, and protesters, and to demand immediate and unconditional release of Ismail Gerami and other jailed teachers and workers. .
One of the demands of the Iranian people is that this barbaric anti-labor government, which commits every crime and even imprisons retired teachers and sentences them to flogging, be expelled from the International Labor Organization ILO and be boycotted worldwide.
Please support our demands and join us in any way you can, including condemning the Islamic Republic through public protest letters and pressuring the International Labor Organization (ILO) to end appeasement with the Islamic Republic.
Campaign to free jailed workers in Iran (Free Them Now)!
August 24, 2021
Shahla Daneshfar
Shahla.daneshfar2@gmail.com
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