Iran: Release Workers Arrested for Strike
Hundreds Detained for Planning Protest
(New York, February 1, 2006) – The Iranian government has responded to a strike planned by Tehran’s bus drivers for January 28 by preemptively detaining hundreds of drivers, including several union organizers, Human Rights Watch said today. Most of the workers remain in detention without charge or access to counsel. Human Rights Watch called on the Iranian government to release them immediately.
The bus drivers, members of the Union of Workers of the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company, had organized the strike to protest the detention of their union leader, Mansour Ossanlu, and to demand recognition of their trade union activities.
“Iran’s new government boasts of representing the interests of working men and women. Their violent crackdown on the bus workers’ union make these words ring hollow,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch.
Shortly after news of the planned strike in response to Ossanlu’s detention, the government launched a crackdown against the union’s leadership. Gholamreza Mirzaii, the union’s spokesman, told Human Rights Watch that on January 26, security and intelligence agents arrested the union’s board of directors to disrupt the planned strike. Mirzaii said that he himself fears arrest by the authorities at any time.
On the day of the planned strike, security and intelligence agents identified and detained hundreds of union sympathizers when they showed up for work in the morning. According to Mirzaii, the security and intelligence forces beat and physically intimidated the workers in connection with the arrests.
The Union of Workers of the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company was founded in 1969, but has been inactive since 1979. The bus workers resumed their trade union activities in 2004. However, the government has refused to recognize the union.
clipped from: hrw.org