Dear Mr. Guy Ryder,
Today, April 12, 2007, I got an opportunity to speak with one of my friends on the phone from the sanandaj prison. During this call, I asked him to inform you through this letter about the circumstances surrounding my kidnapping.
On Monday, April 9th, I was at my work, which is the Saqez Workers’ Consumer Cooperative, when one of the commanding officers of the intelligence section of the security forces of Saqez, came to my work at 12: 30 pm, our time, and told me that the governor and the prosecutor wanted to negotiate regarding the celebration of the First of May in Saqez with me; since this person had been coming to my work numerous times before to invite me for negotiations with the authorities, I did not feel suspicious and left my work along with him. When I got there, I found out that there wasn’t going to be neither any meetings with the governor or the prosecutor nor any discussion of this year’s May Day event. Right there, one of the authorities of the judiciary gave me the verdict of the appeal court orally, according to which I was sentenced to one year imprisonment and three years suspended sentence. I objected to the deceitful way in which my arrest was conducted and called that to be against human dignity and thus refused to sign the order. I also said that the verdict should have been handed down to my lawyers or taken by their officers to my home, but I was body-searched and very hurriedly taken outside the court, where they put me into a car and drove away furiously. After a few hours I found out I was being taken to the Sanandaj Central Prison. This way, they didn’t allow me to say goodbye to my dearly-beloved wife and children, and didn’t even let me to take my medications with me. You are undoubtedly aware that one of my kidneys has stopped working and the other kidney is almost failing and without these medications and continuous treatment my life would be at risk. What does this mean for humanitarian tradition? They have sentenced me only because of my efforts to celebrate my international day and that of my fellow workers but they don’t dare to summon me in a conventional way. They kidnap me to be shielded from the outrage of workers and freedom loving people.
In deed, my arrest three weeks before the first of May 2007 is a political act and not a judicial one. They arrested me within such a particular context so that the organizing of independent May Day events would encounter problems and the workers’ struggles in Iran for the formation of independent organizations from the state would weaken. However, they are ignorant of the fact that I belong to the workers’ social movement. They are ignorant that I and other labour activists and militant people work collectively. This way our movement can always replace the missing members. It’s even probable that under these circumstances the activists of labour movement would increase their actions quantitatively and qualitatively and thus celebrate a much greater international workers’ day. It’s possible that the struggle for the formation of independent workers’ organizations would redouble.
I felt it necessary to send you this letter and personally inform you of these events. From the day that my colleagues and I were arrested on May first 2004 till now there have been many efforts, struggles and protests inside Iran and abroad to push back the Judicial Power of Iran. In the beginning, they associated us with the Kurdistan Organization of the Communist Party of Iran (Komalah) and added endangering the “National Security” to our cases. Extensive efforts of workers’ organizations and foundations in Iran and the world forced the judicial authorities to desist resorting to such fabrications of charges. In other words, the widespread struggles in the country and abroad made them to back down greatly. Yet, this struggle needs to be continued until we are fully acquitted and the right to organize independent celebrations of the international workers’ day is established in Iran. I have no doubt that you would continue to play a valuable and laudable role at this stage as well.
Yours truly,
Mahmoud Salehi
cc:
Anna Biondi
Janek kuczkiewicz
For more information, contact [email protected] or [email protected].
International Alliance in Support of Workers in Iran
Background Information: www.workers-iran.org
http://www.etehadbinalmelali.com/INDEXI.htm