Transport Workers Solidarity Committee

YouTube - Mansour Osanloo - Freedom Will Come (ENGLISH)-Leader of 17,000 Bus Drivers In Iran Spent Years In Prison and Tortured

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in-vF2LvITk&feature=
Mansour Osanloo - Freedom Will Come (ENGLISH)

obraproductions
October 16, 2007
(less info)
Campaign film to free Mansour Osanloo an Iranian trade unionist, held prisoner in Iran
www.freeosanloo.org

Vahed Union Syndicate Calls For Action On 6/26– Iranian Transportation Workers Call For Solidarity Action
http://www.justiceforiranianworkers.org/?p=594

Justice for Iranian Workers26 June 2009 – Global Solidarity Action Day

« US Teamsters back workers’ rights in IranUna guía rápida de las acciones que tienen lugar a nivel local – ¡las pequeñas acciones pueden tener un gran impacto! »
Vahed Syndicate – Any Suppression or threat of civil liberty condemned
18 June Statement
Any Suppression or threat of civil liberty condemned
In line with the recognition of the labour rights, we request that June 26 Action Day – Justice for Iranian workers – to include the human rights of all Iranians who have been deprived of their rights.
In recent days, we continue witnessing the magnificent demonstration of millions of people from all ages, genders, and national and religious minorities in Iran. They request that their basic human rights, particularly the right to freedom and to choose independently and without deception be recognized. These rights are not only constitutional in most of the countries, but also have been protected against all odds.
Amid such turmoil, one witnesses threats, arrests, murders and brutal suppression that one fears only to escalate on all its aspects, resulting in more innocent bloodshed, more protests, and certainly no retreats. The Iranian society is facing a deep political-economical crisis. Million-strong silent protests, ironically loud with un-spoken words, have turned into iconic stature and are expanding from all sides. These protests demand reaction from each and every responsible individual and institution.

TWSC Condemns The Jailing & Repression of Iranian Trade Unionists On May Day 2009

Press Release Press Release
5/15/1009

The Transportation Workers Solidarity Committee condemns the arrest of trade unionists in Iran by the Iranian regime during the commemoration of the May Day 2009. The right of workers to assemble is a basic labor right and the arrest of these workers for participating in a May Day event is an attack on all workers throughout the world. The arrested include
1-Jafar Azimzadeh 2- Gholamreza Khani 3- Mansoor Hayatgheibi 4- Fateme Shah Nazari 5-Alireza Saghafy 6- Mohsen Saghafy 7- Kaveh Mozaffari 8- Amir Yaghoobali 9- Mohammad Faraji 10- Saleh Kiamari 11- Mohammad Ashrafi 12 -Unese Arjang 13- Mehdi Farahi Shandiz 14- Saeid Uzi 15- Maryam Mohseni 16- Homayon Jabari 17- Shapour Ehsani 18- Jelveh Javaheri 19- Taha Vali 20- Pouria Pushtareh 21- Homa Ajdarnia 22- Hamid Khademi 23- Ainolah Basiri 24- Mahmoud Hosseini 25- Omid Shafie 26- Aisan Zarfam 27- Meysam Jafar Nejad 28- Maeilhe Yazdi 29- Masoud Logman 30- Abdoulhassan Shahari 31- Mohammad Lotfi 32- Gholamhossein Razavi 33- Star Sataripour 34- Afsaneh Azimzadeh 35- Seyed Javad Mosavi 36- Yekzad Zangeneh 37- Amirali Yaghoubi 38- Hamid Ghorbani 39- Serous Rahiad 40- Jamal Sied Ali 41- Saeed Sajodi 42- Ali Moadan 43- Najma Ranjbaran 44- Parvaneh Ghasemian 45- Mir Bahari 46- Alireza Firozie

TWSC Protests Threat To Hang Iranian Kurdish teacher by Iranian Government

11/27/2008

The Transport Workers Solidarity Committee (TWSC) demands that the Iranian government halt their plans to execute Iranian Kurdish union activist teacher Farzad Kamangar. We also call for his immediate release from prison. He was arrested for his union activity and for being an activist among Kurdish people in Iran. These democratic rights apparently are worthy of a death sentence by the theocratic regime in Iran. We condemn this assault and warn the Iranian government that the murder of Farzad will be seen as a crime against working people throughout the world and not just in Iran and the Middle East.
We call on transit workers and their unions internationally to protest this attack and to use their power in opposition to these threats.

Transport Workers Solidarity Committee
www.transportworkers.org

http://www.ei-ie.org/en/news/show.php?id=917&theme=rights&country=iran

Other language versions:: FR | ES
News | RSS | Articles | Calendar | Publications | Resource Library | Links | About EI | Membership | Staff | Career & internship opportunities |Contact us | Sitemap| Search

Call To Protest Jail Sentences For 4 Of Tehran Public Bus Company (Vaahed) Workers!

mehran_mahbobi@rogers.com

International Labour Solidarity Committee of the
Worker-communist Party of Iran
23 October 2008

TO ALL INTERNATIONAL WORKING-CLASS ORGANIZATIONS:
Protest jail sentences for 4 of Tehran Public Bus Company (Vaahed) workers!
The Iranian Islamic regime’s judiciary has just recently issued jail sentences for 4 of Vaahed workers – Messrs. Ata Babakhaani, Said Toraabiyaan, Yaqub Salimi, Ali Zaadehoseyni. They have been convicted of participating in the strike of 2005 and acting against national security. They have been sentenced to 6 to 14 months of suspended imprisonment. This has occurred against the backdrop of Mansour Osaanloo, the president of Vaahed Syndicate, having been in jail for over a year now.

We, on the International Labour Solidarity Committee of the Worker-communist Party of Iran, expressly condemn this shameful act on the part of the regime. We thank all trade unions across the world for their extensive, continued solidarity so far with the struggles of the workers and the people of Iran, in general. At the same time, we request all trade unions, as well as all humanist organizations, to continue their support for the workers of Iran on as large a level as possible and, in particular, protest the present jail sentences on for Vaahed workers on as wide a level as possible. The trumped up charges against these workers must be dropped. Mansour Osaanloo, along with all other political prisoners, must be released immediately and unconditionally.

Iran's war on trade unions
President Ahmadinejad is stepping up the repression of labour activists. We should support them in their fight for basic rights
All comments (54)

Peter Tatchell
guardian.co.uk, Monday August 18 2008 18:30 BST
Article history
The anti-worker dictatorship in Iran has stepped up its attacks on labour activists, with a new wave of arrests and jailings.

Among those recently jailed were two workers' rights campaigners, Sousan Razani and Shiva Kheirabadi. They have been sentenced to 15 lashes and four months in prison for the "crime" (under Iran's Islamic law) of participating in a May Day celebration in the city of Sanandaj earlier this year. The verdicts were issued by the criminal court of Sanandaj – branch 101.

On the same charges the same court sentenced Abdullah Khani to 91 days in prison and 40 lashes and Seyed Qaleb Hosseini to six months and 50 lashes.

In addition, Khaled Hosseini, a worker activist, was given a 91 day suspended sentence and 30 lashes because of his efforts to support the trade union leader, Mahmoud Salehi, who was imprisoned at the time and was being denied medical treatment. The charges against him include "disturbing public order and agitation."

http://www.itfglobal.org/news-online/index.cfm/newsdetail/2290

News online

Tehran bus union man arrested in new attack

25 June 2008

The ITF has expressed acute concern following the arrest yesterday of Gholamreza Gholamhosseini, another member of its Iranian bus affiliate.

Gholamhosseini, a member of the Vahed Syndicate Executive Board
was arrested by police in Tehran while visiting Shirodi Stadium, where an event to mark Iran’s Women's Day was taking place. The gathering was sponsored by the municipality of Tehran and by the bus company, Sherkat Vahed.

Security personnel prevented Gholamhosseini from entering the stadium; police then apprehended him and took him to Gisha Police Station.

Today, June 25th, Judge Hassan Dehghan Dehnavi, who is also involved in the case of the union’s General Secretary Mansour Osanloo, ordered Gholamhosseini’s detention in Evin prison. Hassan Dehghan Dehnavi declared that Gholamhosseini, who is not charged with any crime, should be detained for an indefinite period whilst his case is investigated.

Gholamhosseini had been dismissed from the company for taking part in the strike action of January 2006. Although the court has ordered his reinstatement, the company is refusing to comply.

By Mahtaub Hojjati - San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, August 19, 2007

Iran's despotic mullahs are worried more about Teamsters union President James Hoffa than Iran's Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi. Why? They are frightened by the prospect that Hoffa's escalating voice may give birth to an Iranian version of Solidarity's Lech Walesa, whose courageous and charismatic leadership transformed Poland's workers into an invincible political force.

A gem of an alliance has been cut between Hoffa and Iran's labor movement. In December 2005, the Teamsters president demanded, in a letter to Iran's notoriously belligerent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the release of 14 labor union workers unjustly detained and beaten. In July 2007, after the jailing and brutalization of Mansour Ossanlou, a Bus Transport Workers Union leader, Hoffa similarly insisted on his freedom and condemned the Iranian government's flagrant disdain for freedom of association and expression.

Iran's theocrats fear Hoffa because they worry about the close nexus between free labor unions and political freedom. Last year, two prominent Iranian labor leaders, Mahmoud Salehi and Jalal Hosseini, were tried and convicted of internal subversion in secret proceedings conducted by the Saqqez Revolutionary Court.

An international trade union has condemned the disappearance of Iranian union leader Mansour Osanlou, who has reportedly been abducted in Tehran.

Mr Osanlou's wife told the BBC her husband was pulled from a bus by unidentified men on Tuesday evening.

The International Transport Workers' Federation (ITF) has written to Iran's president to protest.

Mr Osanlou, head of Tehran's transport workers' union, spent most of 2006 in prison for running a strike in 2005.

As the director of the Union of Workers of the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company, Mr Osanlou was first detained in December 2005 for organising a walk-out by bus drivers.

The drivers then planned another strike in January 2006 in response to his detention and to demand recognition of their trade union activities.

The Iranian government responded by pre-emptively detaining hundreds of drivers, including several union organisers.

All were later released, but Mr Osanlou was detained in Tehran's Evin prison for several months before being freed on bail.

His union is not recognised by the Iranian government, but it is the first independent Iranian trade unions to be affiliated to an international organisation, says the BBC's Pam O'Toole.