Amnesty International Launches Iran Trade Union Rights Campaign

Amnesty International (AI) has launched a global campaign for worker’s rights in Iran, officially kicked off at a June 10 press conference at the ILO in Geneva organized jointly with IUF, ITF, Education International (EI) and the ITUC. Amnesty’s trade union adviser Shane Enright presented the organization’s new report on the situation of Iranian workers, Determined to Live in Dignity.  the report, which contains a section on the struggle of the IUF-affiliated Haft Tapeh Sugar Workers’ Union, is available in English, Arabic and Farsi with translations into other languages forthcoming.

He described the report as the backbone of the campaign, scheduled to last at least a year but which was “The continuation of an ongoing partnership and collaboration that we have had with the ITF, the IUF and EI and ITUC on these cases going back as far as six years.”

Amnesty, he said, “Will use the publication in many ways and in many contexts. We will distribute it to national and European parliamentarians. We will use it to raise the awareness of workers and Amnesty supporters in those countries that have friendly relations with Iran. We will generate solidarity through protests, action days, postcard appeals and so on. In this work we will act together – teachers, transport workers, food and agricultural workers coming together with Amnesty activists and supporters. Our national Amnesty sections will coordinate with national union centres to define the best activities and the correct moments for action according to their national circumstances and opportunities.”

AI has also launched an online appeal on behalf of recently released (but only conditionally) transport union leader Mansour Ossanlu, demanding that he stay free, and calling for the immediate and unconditional release of Ossanlu’s imprisoned colleagues Reza Shahabi and Ebrahim Maddadi. You can sign the appeal here.