Continued Criticism of the Whipping of 17 Dismissed Workers in West Azerbaijan

As criticism continues over the whipping of 17 dismissed workers from the Agh Dareh gold mine in West Azerbaijan province, Reza Naghi Zadeh, the provincial director of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare, has been dismissed from his position due to what has been described as his 'unawareness' of the implementation of the whipping sentence for these workers. The ILNA news agency reported this, citing an informed source, stating that Ali Rabiei, the Minister of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare, issued the dismissal order. In late May of this year, 17 dismissed workers from the Agh Dareh gold mine received between 30 to 100 lashes as per a court ruling, and some of them were also imprisoned. This has led to widespread protests. The Coordination Committee to Help Establish Labor Organizations, the Worker’s Rights Defenders Association, the Syndicate of Workers of the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company, and the National Council of Islamic Labor Councils have criticized the implementation of the whipping sentence for the 17 dismissed workers and the imprisonment of some of them. Furthermore, according to Fars News Agency, Faramarz Tofighi, an advisor to the Supreme Council of Labor Representatives, deemed the execution of whipping sentences as a violation of International Labor Organization conventions and stated that protesting is a legal right of workers. Previously, ILNA reported that these workers had also been sentenced to prison, but due to the 'forgiveness' declared by the employer, Pouya Zarkan, and 'judicial amnesty', they were not imprisoned. However, Faramarz Tofighi told Fars News Agency that a number of workers have been sent to prison, although he did not disclose the number, and Iranian judicial and governmental officials have not commented on this matter. The charges against these 17 workers included 'preventing and hindering people from conducting business by creating uproar and commotion, insulting the company guard, unlawfully detaining the guard, and intentionally damaging the sign of Pouya Zarkan Company' in January 2015. Meanwhile, Nader Qazipour, a member of parliament from Urmia, stated to Basij News Agency on Tuesday that the governor of Takab County insisted on enforcing the sentence and mentioned that the ministers of Interior, Labor, and Industry would be summoned to parliament to respond to this incident. On the other hand, the newspaper Javan called for accountability of the judge who issued these sentences and criticized the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare, stating that while Ali Rabiei travels to Geneva to present labor achievements, Iranian workers receive whipping sentences for protesting the abrupt termination of their cooperation. Additionally, according to ILNA, Hossein Habibi, the secretary of the Coordination Council of Islamic Labor Councils of Tehran province, published an open letter to Ali Rabiei, demanding the government to apologize to the Agh Dareh workers. In the meantime, according to the Meydan website, Bahram Hosseini Nejad, the dismissed secretary of the Chador Malu Mine Workers' Association, which was a catalyst for labor protests in that mine in 2015, referred to what he termed the intensification of the suppression of workers' protests and the securitization of the atmosphere surrounding these protests, accusing the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare of being 'one side of the suppression issue.' The issuance of whipping sentences for workers or labor activists in Iran is not unprecedented. Over the years, several workers and labor activists have been sentenced to lashes; in the last two years, whipping sentences have been issued in Yazd, Kurdistan, Khuzestan, Lorestan, and the Assaluyeh region, although these sentences were not executed for various reasons. However, prior to that, whipping sentences against labor activists in Kurdistan province were executed in 2008 and 2009. In this context, the Human Rights Commission condemned the recent whippings in Iran, and two labor organizations protested the execution of the whipping sentences for the 17 workers, describing it as 'the whip of the employer and judge on the backs of protesting workers.' Some of the whipped workers were sent to prison, and 17 dismissed workers from the Agh Dareh mine in West Azerbaijan were whipped.