Sample Protest letter (updated August 17, 2017):
End Reza Shahabi’s persecution! Reza Shahabi must be immediately and unconditionally released.
I (we) are writing to protest the continued persecution of Reza Shahabi, the executive board member and treasurer of the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran Bus Workers’ Company, who has been incarcerated again as of August 9, 2017. Shahabi has been on a hunger strike since August 9th. According to the prosecutor’s office, stated to Reza Shahabi’s wife, Shahabi has to be in prison until December 22, 2018. At the same time, the prison authorities have told Shahabi that the whole period he had been on approved medical leave is not accepted (and considered absence) and that he has to stay in prison for another 968 days in addition to one year prison for his last charges.
Reza Shahabi was arrested in June 2010 while he was on the job, driving a bus; he was violently assaulted in front of bus riders and incarcerated in Evin prison’s ward 209. After spending nineteen months in solitary confinement he was given six years of prison sentence, banned from any union activities for five years and a financial fine of seven and half million Tomans by branch 15 of the revolutionary court. Due to extensive physical stress and tortures during interrogations, Mr. Shahabi suffered from back and neck dislocation and had to go under surgery twice. After enduring prison for years he had been under medical leave of absence based on coroner’s recommendation. It should be noted that during his long incarceration Mr. Shahabi had to resort to hunger strike, four separate times, in protesting against lack of medical attention to his deteriorating health conditions and the growing numbness of the left side of his body. His last hunger strike, to protest against his transfer to Rajaee Shahr prison in City of Karaj, lasted fifty-two days. Mr. Shahabi was prosecuted again in January of 2015 based on charges of “propagating against the system” – related to the infamous attack of the security forces on Evin prison’s ward 350 on April 17, 2014 – and sentenced to an additional year in prison, and this verdict was upheld in an appeals court.
I (we) strongly condemn the continued targeting and unjust re-incarceration of Reza Shahabi. I (we) also denounce ongoing persecution and arrests of labour activists in Iran. I (we) demand the immediate and unconditional freedom of Reza Shahabi and all other detained labour activists in Iran. The Iranian government is responsible for the health and wellbeing of Reza Shahabi.
Name:
Organization/Position:
PLEASE SEND protest letters to the email addresses below: Please also send them via the Iranian diplomatic representatives accredited to your country, if there is an Iranian diplomatic mission in your country. Although Iranian embassies’ addresses change frequently, please see the link below which might help: https://www.embassypages.com/iran
· Leader of the Islamic Republic
Ayatollah Sayed ‘Ali Khamenei
Twitter: @khamenei_ir (English) or @Khamenei_fa (Persian)
Email: [email protected]
· President of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Hassan Rouhani
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @HassanRouhani (English) and
@Rouhani_ir (Persian)
· The Judiciary of the Islamic Republic of Iran – High Council of Human Rights
info @humanrights –iran .ir;
· Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations
Email: [email protected]
Tehran Judiciary: [email protected]
Tehran Bus Company: [email protected]
Cc or BCC: [email protected]; [email protected];