Final Verdict against Saqez Labour Leaders
April 13, 2007- According to the latest reports from Iran, Mr. Jalal Hosseini, one of the Saqez labour leaders arrested on May Day 2004, was summoned to the Saqez prosecutor’s office on April 11, 2007. The prosecutor orally read the verdict of Mr. Hosseini as well as Mohsen Hakimi and Borhan Divargar.
The Saqez Revolutionary Court had previously sentenced Salehi to 4 years imprisonment, while Jalali, Hakimi and Divargar were each sentenced to two years jail. The Kurdistan Court of Appeal changed Salehi’s to one year immediate imprisonment and three years suspended sentence and he has been taken to a prison in Sanandaj since April 9, 2007. The appeal court also confirmed the two years imprisonment for Hosseini, Hakimi and Divargar, but they have suspended those sentences for three years. Hosseini was told by the prosecutor that the three of them (Hosseini, Hakimi and Divargar) are free for three years but if they commit any illegal acts during the next three years they would then have to face trials for that particular act and will also have to serve their two years suspended jail sentence of the 2004 case immediately. At this time, the only labour activist of the Saqez trials in prison is Mr. Salehi; however, but all of these 4 activists are going to be under constant scrutiny and if they ever engage in another labour action they would most probably face new charges as well as having to serve the suspended sentences.
As we have been witnessing, one of the dominant trends of the Iranian government in recent years has been to arrest and jail labour activists, releasing them on heavy bails and persecuting and criminalizing them continually in addition to sacking them simultaneously from the workplaces. This way the authorities expect cutting off all ties between labour leaders and the broader labour movement and discourage and intimidate other labour activists from involvement in the rising labour movement. Tehran’s Vahed Syndicate’s activists and Saqez labour activists have already been targets of such anti-worker practices, and activist teachers in recent weeks have been targeted in different cities across the country.
Condemn the Imprisonment of Mahmoud Salehi
and the Suspended Sentences Against The Saqez Labour Leaders!
Free Mahmoud Salehi Now!
More updates to come soon.
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