Ismail Abdi, prisoner of conscience and Secretary General of Iran’s Teachers’ Trade Association (ITTA), plans to go on hunger strike on International Workers’ Day on May 1 to protest the repression of trade unionists, Amnesty International said in an Urgent Action appeal on Tuesday.
Mr. Abdi has been sentenced on charges related to his peaceful trade union activities, the rights group said.
“Ismail (Esmail) Abdi was informed in February that he had been sentenced by Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran to six years’ imprisonment on the charges of ‘spreading propaganda against the system’ and ‘gathering and colluding to commit crimes against national security’,” Amnesty said.
“The charges stem from his trade union activities, including peaceful demonstrations held by teachers and members of the ITTA outside the Iranian parliament in May 2015 in protest against poor wages, low education budget, and imprisonment of teacher trade unionists.”
“His trial was in breach of international fair trial standards; in particular he was denied access a lawyer of his choice during the entire investigative phase and his lawyer was not allowed to obtain and review his court file before the trial. Amnesty International understands that the authorities’ denial of Ismail Abdi’s right to access a lawyer of his choosing was based on a provision in Iran’s new 2015 Code of Criminal Procedures, which restricts access to legal counsel during the investigative phase for people facing certain offences including those related to national security. Under this provision, they may only choose a lawyer from a list of those pre-approved by the Head of Judiciary”, it said.
In April, Mr. Abdi wrote an open letter, in which he said that he intends to go on hunger strike on May 1, 2016, stating “according to the evidence used to issue the verdicts against [me] you could say that any efforts…to improve the lives and livelihood of teachers and workers in Iran are considered acts against national security.”
Mr. Abdi had been prevented from travelling to Armenia to apply for a visa to attend the seventh Education International World Congress in Canada in July 2015.
He was arrested on June 27, 2015 after he went to the Prosecutor’s Office in Evin Prison to inquire about the travel ban placed on him. He was transferred to solitary confinement in Section 2A of Tehran’s Evin Prison, run by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), and interrogated for at least 17 days without access to his family or lawyer.
“He may face a total of 16 years’ imprisonment if his new sentence is upheld. This is due to a previous suspended 10-year sentence that he received following a 2011 conviction on trumped up national security charges, related to his peaceful trade union activities,” Amnesty wrote.
“Before his arrest, intelligence officials had summoned Ismail Abdi for interrogation a number of times, and had pressured him to resign from his post as ITTA General Secretary and to cancel planned nationwide demonstrations that the ITTA, a legally constituted entity in Iran, had helped organize. During these interrogations, intelligence officials also warned Ismail Abdi against associating with international teachers’ trade unions, including Education International, and said his participation in their international gatherings was a ‘red line’.”