The Islamic regime of Iran has intensified its repression these days in response to widespread teachers’ protests. Teachers’ calls for nationwide rallies on International Workers’ Day, along with retirees and the solidarity response from different sections of the workers and people, has caused fear and panic among the ranks of the rulers. The arrests of teachers and workers are supposed to help them. Time and time again, they have done this without result, and the protests for a better life and livelihood have spread even more. But this government has no other means but repression against the teachers and workers.
During the days just before May Day and after that many teachers in different cities were summoned and security files were created against them. Some of recent detainees on May Day are still in prison. They include: Mohammad Habibi (Tehran), Rasoul Bodaghi (Islamshahr), Jafar Ebrahimi (Tehran), Ali Akbar Baghani (Tehran), Eskandar Lotfi (Marivan), Masoud Nikkhah (Marivan), and Hadi Sadeghzadeh (Mashhad).
Meanwhile, a number of teachers and labor activists are already in prison. One of these is Ismail Abdi, who has gone on a one-month hunger strike since May 1 in protest of the government’s crackdown on his colleagues. The government has cut off his telephone contacts and transferred him to an unknown prison, as punishment. It is worth mentioning that he is convicted to 16 years prison and been in jail since 2016.
Other imprisoned teachers and workers are: Mohammad Taghi Fallahi, Alieh Eghdamdoost, Nosrat Beheshti, Nahid Fath’alian, Zeinab Hamrang, Hashem Khastar, Mohad Hossein Sepehri, Yaghoub Yazdani, Masoumeh Askari, Haleh Safarzadeh, Mohammad Reza Ramazanzadeh, Hosein Ramazanpur, Alireza Saghafi, Shapoor Ehsani Rad, Nasrollah Amirloo, Ismail Gerami, Ali Ishaq, Arash Johari, Shadi Gilak, Mehran Raouf, Nahid Taghavi, Somayeh Kargar, Bahareh Soleimani, Nazanin Mohammadnejad
An extensive campaign is currently underway in different cities to release all imprisoned teachers and workers. Among them, two days of large gatherings and sit-ins of teachers took place in the city of Marivan on 8th and 9th May, and in other cities such as Bushehr, Aligudarz, Sanandaj, Jolfa and Kermanshah there have been campaigns going on in support of the detainees. Teachers in Bushehr have collected petitions to protest the arrest of their colleagues. In this regard, the Coordinating Council of Cultural Associations has invited teachers and families of students and everyone to gather in front of the Islamic parliament in Tehran, and in front of education centres in different cities, for May 12th.
Free Them Now condemns attacks on teachers and workers and arrests, and calls on all workers ‘and teachers’ organizations and unions around the world to condemn the Islamic regime of Iran for violating the basic rights of the people and to demand the immediate release of all those arrested. Especially in view of the forthcoming ILO’s annual conference, we call on the workers unions to demand the expulsion of the representatives of the Islamic Republic of Iran from this organization.
Free Them Now
9 May 2022
Shahla.daneshfar2@gmail.com