Gravest concerns about the continuing detention, intimidation and repression of trade unionists in Iran

By e- mail: media@rouhani.ir, info_leader@leader.ir, iran@un.int, mission.iran@ties.itu.int

 

To: Hassan Rouhani

President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Cc:    Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations, New York; Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani, Head of the Judiciary; Dr Ali Rabiei, Minister of Co-operatives, Labour and Social Welfare

 

November 2016

 

Dear President Hassan Rouhani,

The International Centre for Trade Union Rights is writing to express its gravest concerns about the continuing detention, intimidation and repression of trade unionists in Iran.

ICTUR understands that on 7 October, Esmail Abdi, general secretary of the Iranian Teachers’ Trade Association, received a confirmation of a six-year prison sentence for ‘assembling and colluding against national security’.  It is understood that Abdi was first detained after attempting  to  leave  Iran  to  attend  the  7th  World  Congress  of Education International (EI) in Ottawa, Canada in July 2015. On 15

October, two other labour activists, Jafar Azimzadeh, chairman of the Free Union of the Iranian Workers, and Shapour Ehsanirad, were sentenced to 11 years of imprisonment each for ‘establishing unions and propaganda against the regime’. Azimzadeh was already serving a six-year prison sentence handed down in 2015 and had been granted a retrial following a hunger strike.

Earlier this year in May, it is reported that seventeen workers from Iran’s Agh Dareh gold mine in the northwestern city of Tikaab were publicly flogged, after they protested against the firing of 350 of their colleagues. It is understood that their employer filed a complaint against them for the protest action, and the sentence was carried out by the security services.

Such  attacks  on,  arrests  and  sentencing  of  workers  for  activities related to the defence of their interests constitute serious violations of trade union rights, as enshrined in ILO Conventions 87 and 98, and are furthermore a violation of the principles enshrined in the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

ICTUR recalls that the Islamic Republic of Iran is a founding member of the International Labour Organisation.    It was one of the first countries in the sub-region to join the Organisation. Iran has ratified

13  ILO Conventions including five  of  the  eight  core  Conventions (covering the elimination of forced labour, child labour and discrimination), though not Conventions 87 or 98 on freedom of association and collective bargaining.  The Government is, however, obliged to recognise the principle of freedom of association by virtue of its adherence to the Constitution of the International Labour Organisation(1). The obligation to respect the fundamental principles of freedom of association is established under the terms of membership of the ILO, and the terms of this obligation were re-stated in 1998 with the proclamation of the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.

ICTUR recalls and wishes to draw the authorities’ attention to comments issued some years ago by a supervisory body of the ILO, the Committee on Freedom of Association, when it reported in Case No. 2566 (Report No 351), at paragraph 984 its view on the overall situation for trade union rights and freedom of association in the country: ‘…the Committee considers that the situation obtaining in the country may be characterised by regular violations of civil liberties and a systematic use of the criminal law to punish trade unionists for engaging in legitimate trade union activities’.  In the same case, at paragraph 988, the Committee added that it was ‘compelled to express its deep concern with the seriousness of the trade union climate in the Islamic Republic of Iran and calls the Governing Body’s special attention to the situation’).

azimzadeh

The Government is also obliged to recognise the principle of freedom of  association  by  virtue  of  its  ratifications  of  the  International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.   The Islamic Republic of Iran is a founding member of the United Nations.  It signed both the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on 4 April 1968 and ratified those instruments together on 24 June 1975.

ICCPR contains extensive protection for trade union rights under Article 22, subject only to such restrictions as: i) are prescribed by law and ii) are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety, public order, the protection of public health or morals or the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.  And the ICESCR similarly contains extensive protection for trade union rights under Article 8, which are explicitly cross-referenced to the standards protected by the ILO under Convention 87.

ICTUR condemns in  the  strongest terms these violations of  trade union and workers’ rights, which have resulted in the indiscriminate detention, torture and persecution of trade unionists. ICTUR calls on the Iranian authorities to take all measures necessary to ensure the release of trade union leaders and members from detention, and to drop all charges against them.

We further take this opportunity to urge again the Government of Iran to  ratify  ILO  Convention  87  on  Freedom  of  Association  and Protection of the Right to Organise, and ILO Convention 98 on the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining.

Yours Faithfully,

Daniel Blackburn, Director

 

1 Digest of decisions and principles of the Freedom of Association Committee of the

Governing Body of the ILO, Fifth (revised) edition 2006, paras. 17-26.

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