Iran: More Workers Arrested As Unionists Picket

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0708/S00334.htm

Iran: More Workers Arrested As Unionists Picket
Friday, 10 August 2007, 3:45 pm
Press Release: ITUC

International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)

Iran: More workers arrested as unionists picket embassies around the world

Brussels, 9 August 2007: As trade unionists and human rights activists around the world joined in an international "Iran Day of Action" today, demanding the release from prison of two prominent Iranian trade union leaders, Iranian authorities reacted by stepping up repression against the country's independent trade union movement.


Demonstrators at the Iranian embassy in Brussels - Image courtesy of ITUC

Early this morning, state security agents arrested five executives of the Tehran Bus Drivers Trade Union ("Syndica Sherkat-e Vahed"). Tehran police also prevented union members from attending a support rally called at the house of Mansour Osanloo; President of the Sherkat-e Vahed trade union and one of the two whose release is being demanded by international trade unionists.

He was arrested last July, shortly after returning from London and Brussels, where he had addressed a meeting of the ITUC General Council. The other is Mahmoud Salehi, co-founder of the Co-ordinating Committee to Form Workers' Organisations.

He has suffered very severe judicial persecution for organising workers' activities on May Day in 2004. Previously arrested and released, he was finally detained in the Sanandaj prison on 9 April 2007 and has since then been denied medical treatment for a severe kidney condition.

FULL story at link.