NCRI – Iranian political prisoner Jafar Azimzadeh, a workers’ rights activist, who has been on an indefinite hunger strike for over two weeks, has sent a statement out of Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison following the release on bail of fellow political prisoner Ismail Abdi, Secretary General of Iran’s Teachers’ Trade Association (ITTA).
The following is the text of the statement by Jafar Azimzadeh:
My dear friend and resistant cellmate Ismail Abdi was released on three 3 billion Rials bail (U.S. $100,000). He had spent 11 months in prison without a judicial verdict and solely based on the will of the security apparatus. Abdi’s release, while exciting and gratifying, does not mean that even a small step was being taken to realize our demands and the demands of millions of teachers and workers.
In our joint statement that was strongly and passionately supported by the country’s teachers and workers unions as well as labor and teachers’ organizations across the world, we demanded an end to treating social and civil protests as security issues and removing the charge of “associating and colluding with intent to act against national security” from the open files of protesting workers and teachers and imprisoned union activists, including ourselves.
We protested wages below the poverty line, the ban on holding independent and free celebrations to mark International Workers’ Day and Teachers’ Day, the ban on forming independent trade unions, and lack of transparency and effective action by the International Labor Organization (ILO) against flagrant violation of the essential rights of Iranian workers and teachers, and we did go on hunger strike.
Accordingly, as far as it concerns Ismail Abdi’s release through a heavy bail and an open case with heavy security charges, such an act from the legal authority dealing with his case even within the framework of existing law-breaking actions, was routine and, in Ismail’s case, predictable.
For that reason, his release can’t be used as a claim of addressing our demands and that of millions of workers and teachers, and it appears that it was intended to overshadow and limit the scope of the ever increasing (labor and teachers) movement that has centered around ending the treatment of protests by teachers and workers as security issues and protesting heavy security charges against trade activists around the country and around the globe.
Therefore, with great appreciation for the support of Iran’s teachers and workers and labor and workers’ unions and organizations around the world for our demands in the joint statement with Ismail Abdi, and emphasizing on realization of all of them, I will continue my indefinite hunger strike that I began on April 30.
Copy to: International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)
Jafar Azimzadeh – Ward 8 of Evin Prison
May 2016