Iranian trade unionists Mansour Osanloo and Mahmoud Salehi are experiencing terrible conditions in prison, with the regime showing the utmost contempt for their welfare. The pair, alongside almost a hundred of student activists, have been locked up by an unpopular regime cracking down on a rising tide of popular discontent.
While the media in Britain portrays Iranian politics as a battle between Islamist ‘conservatives’ and more liberal ‘reformists’ like former president Mohammad Khatami, in fact the divisions in Iran go deeper than disputes between different sections of the elite. A new left is shaking Iranian society.
Independent trade unions and social movements have rejected both the politics of the regime and the empty ‘democratic’ promises of US imperialism, and are waging a desperate struggle for a democracy enshrining workers’, women’s, LGBT and minority nationalities’ rights.
It appears that repression has stepped up in the last few months, with massive reprisals against the student movement. Hundreds bravely demonstrated at sites including Tehran University in December, raising slogans such as “No to imperialist war, death to the dictator “ and “The university is not an army garrison!”. After mass arrests, it is feared that as many as 81 of these students are still in jail.
One of those arrested, law student Ebrahim Latif Allahi, was murdered in Sanandaj prison. His family were told that “he had committed suicide in prison”, and that “his body has already been buried” – but they are convinced that he died during torture.
This assertion seems highly likely, given the similar brutal treatment of Mansour Osanloo, Iran’s best known trade unionist, who has repeatedly been kidnapped, assaulted and imprisoned for “attempts to jeopardise national security”. Currently serving a five-year sentence after leading bus workers’ strikes in Tehran, he has been blinded in one eye in prison.
The same goes for Mahmoud Salehi, the founding member of the trade Association of Bakery Workers in Saqez, Kurdistan. Imprisoned for his attempts to organise a union, he has fallen seriously ill in jail. But despite having been diagnosed with a blocked blood vessel in his heart, and the doctor’s recommendation that he be kept under medical supervision for at least a week, the prison authorities have sent Salehi back to his cell and denied him even the right to stay in the prison’s medical unit. In hospital Salehi's leg was cuffed to the bed, while his wife was threatened with arrest for protesting when a prison guard tried to assault her.
On March 6th Middle East Workers’ Solidarity activists participated in the international day of solidarity with Iranian trade unionists, which in Britain included mass leafleting at King’s Cross station in London (backed by the RMT railworkers’ union) as well as a demonstration at the Iranian Embassy.
Responding to the call of the International Transport workers’ Federation, trade unionists protested in solidarity with Osanloo and Salehi across the globe – from Australia to Ethiopia, from India to Indonesia, the international labour movement is slowly waking up to the cause of working-class resistance to the dictator Ahmedinejad.
► Part of our solidarity with our comrades in Iran is opposition to any war, bombing raids or sanctions, which can only serve to undermine the workers’ movement. MEWS activists will be leafleting the Stop the War demo on March 15th and collecting money for Iranian student organisations. Contact middleeastworkerssolidarity@googlemail.com
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