To the wokers’ trade unions around the world:
Protest the widespread arrests of teachers in Iran
There are currently at least 15 teachers in prison
You are aware of the teachers’ nationwide protests in Iran from one month prior to the start of this new school year. Last month, for example, the teachers held six nationwide protest rallies, and since the beginning of the new school year (September 23), they have held two large nationwide rallies, the last of which was in the third of Mehr month (September 26) in more than 35 cities.
In the face of these protests, the Islamic regime has intensified arrests and summonses instead of responding to teachers’ demands. The most recent arrests are as these: On September 25, Aziz Ghasemzadeh, the spokesman of the Teachers’ Union in Gilan province, was arrested by security forces at his father’s house and was taken to an unknown location. Prior to that on September 12, Yaghoub Yazdani, a member of the board of directors of the North Khorasan province’s Cultural Association, was arrested and sent to Bojnourd city Central Prison on charges of “disturbing public order”. Yazdani has been sentenced to two years, in magistrate court. On September 14, Mehdi Fathi, one of the protesting teachers, was arrested by security forces. He was sentenced to 14 months in prison in the magistrate court. On September 6 this year, Gholamreza Gholami, another teacher was arrested in the village of Kundaz in Fars Province and transferred to an unknown location.
There are currently at least 14 teachers in prison, who have participated in teacher’s protests. Besides those, dozens have been sentenced to prison, and they may be summoned and arrested at any time. In the new wave of summonses, dozens of teachers have been summoned and some for the second time. In addition to the above, the names of the some other imprisoned teachers are:
– Ismail Abdi a well-known teacher and a member of the board of the Teacher’s association of Tehran, has been in prison since 2015, with 10 years prison sentence. Mr Abdi was initially sentenced to six years in prison and was sentenced to another ten years in prison on the eve of the end of his sentence.
– Nahid Fath’alian, a retired teacher, was arrested by security forces on March 2020, and she is in prison since then.
– Zeinab Hamrang, a retired secretary of education, was arrested in September 2020 and sentenced to six years in prison in July 2021 on charges of propaganda against the regime.
– Masoumeh Asgari was sentenced to 5 years in prison in August 2018 and was arrested in December of that year.
– Mohammad Arkian is in prison in Karaj on charges of propaganda against the regime.
Hashem Khastar a retired teacher was arrested in late August 2019 and sentenced in February 2020 to 16 years prison, three years exile in Nikshahr and a three-year ban on leaving the country. He is being held in Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad city.
– Mohammad Hossein Sepehri was arrested on July 2019 and transferred to Vakilabad prison in Mashhad
– Nusrat Beheshti was arrested on July 2021 and transferred to Mashhad prison.
– Mohammad Reza Ramezanzadeh a member of the North Khorasan Cultural Association, was arrested on December 2021 and was sent to Bojnourd Prison to serve his one-year sentence.
– Hassan Hosseinkhani, a retired teacher, was arrested on July 2021 in Mahabad and sentenced to three-month prison sentence.
– Hojjatollah Rafeei was arrested on June 2021 by security forces in Shahriar city and is waiting for his sentence.
Besides the teachers, Mustafa Nili, a voluntary lawyer of teachers, has also been detained since August, 2021, for defending the detained teachers.
In addition to imprisoned teachers, a number of teachers have been tried and sentenced,or have been summoned and will be tried at any time. Among them are Pirooz Nam, and Ali Koroshat, members of the Teachers’ Union in Khuzestan, and Mahmoud Malaki and Hossein Rezaei in Bushehr, and Asghar Amirzadegan in Fars Province. Mahmoud Sedighipour, Teymour Bagheri, Mahboubeh Farahzadi in Tehran, Hamid Ghandi and Rasoul Badaghi, in Shahriar Jafar Ebrahimi in Islamshahr, Mahmoud Sedighipour and Teymour Bagheri in Gilani and a number of teachers in Khomeini Shahr have also been summoned.
Mohammad Ali Zahmatkesh, a teacher in Shiraz, was released from Adelabad prison in Shiraz on Ausgsut 2019, after a year in prison. He had to pay a fine of 12 million Toman instead of 74 lashes.
We call on all the workers’ and teachers’ unions to support the Iranian teachers and protest the violation of teacher’s basic rights by the Islamic regime of Iran.
Free Them Now (FTN)
Shahla.daneshfar2@gmail.com
October 6,2021