Continued Government Pressure on Educators in Iran; Three Teacher Union Activists Arrested

As the Iranian government continues its pressure on union activists, on Tuesday, November 20, three teacher union activists were arrested, one was dismissed and laid off, and another returned to prison after a three-day leave. The Telegram channel of the Fars Teachers' Union reported the arrest of three teacher union activists in Fars province on Tuesday, November 20. According to this union, Mohammad Ali Zahmatkesh, Afshin Razmjooei, and Mojgan Bagheri were arrested "without prior notice or information for attendance and introduction for the execution of sentences" at their homes. The report states that five-year prison sentences for Mohammad Ali Zahmatkesh and Afshin Razmjooei, as well as a two-year prison sentence for Mojgan Bagheri, are currently being executed. The Fars Teachers' Union also reported that the sentence of "two years of ankle monitoring" for Abd al-Razaq Amiri and Zahra Esfandiari has also been implemented. Previously, on October 5, several teacher union activists, including Iraj Rahnama and Gholamreza Gholami-Kandazi in Shiraz and Asghar Amirzadegan in Firuzabad, were arrested and sent to prison to serve five-year sentences. The Coordination Council of Iranian Teachers' Unions reported on Tuesday, November 20, that Rasool Badaghi, a teacher union activist and a member of the Coordination Council, returned to prison on Tuesday evening after his three-day leave ended. Mr. Badaghi has gone on hunger strikes several times during his imprisonment. In a letter from Evin Prison in the winter of 2022, he emphasized the "decades of destruction" of "material and spiritual interests," including water and soil and the trust and belief of the Iranian people, revealing the harsh conditions of his 120-day detention and that of his colleagues in wards 209 and 240 of Evin Prison. The Coordination Council of Iranian Teachers' Unions also reported the dismissal and layoff of Hamid Jafari Nasrabadi, a teacher, writer, and football coach from the Ministry of Education by the ruling of the Appeals Board of the Ministry of Education's Disciplinary Committee. According to the council, in the appeals court, only the five-year prison sentence of Mr. Jafari Nasrabadi was suspended, while other restrictions remained in place. The reason for Mr. Jafari Nasrabadi's dismissal and layoff was cited as "propaganda against the regime" and "insulting the leader of the Islamic Republic." He was arrested during the protests over the death of Mahsa (Zhina) Amini on October 19, 2022, and was sentenced to 15 months and one day in prison, two years of suspension from public service, and a travel ban by the Revolutionary Court in Kashan. He had also spent a year and a half in Evin Prison during his student years in the 2000s for publishing a student magazine. Currently, several teachers and their activists are imprisoned on security charges, while others are awaiting summons to serve their sentences. The Coordination Council of Iranian Teachers' Unions previously described the issuance of "retaliatory" sentences for union activists and teachers as leading to "deprivation of students from education and the stripping of their material and cultural lives." Several teacher and educator unions have previously considered "judicial and security actions against activist teachers, the issuance of long prison sentences, and the creation of cases against them in Islamic Revolutionary Courts, the issuance of dismissal, layoff, forced retirement, exile, and in some cases, the cutting of salaries and exclusion from ranking" as crises within the educational system of the Islamic Republic. Earlier in September 2023, coinciding with the protests of the Coordination Council of Iranian Teachers' Unions against the intensification of the administrative, security, and judicial atmosphere towards teacher activists, the Ham-Mihan newspaper reported the deprivation of at least 80 teachers from the ranking law in the past year. According to the report on Thursday, September 8, several teacher activists faced unprecedented punishments such as suspension and forced retirement due to pursuing union demands, including in cyberspace. The report stated that some teachers were excluded from ranking and sentenced to early retirement, suspension from service, or even imprisonment due to their participation in protests in front of education departments, union activities in cyberspace, and protests against the poisoning of students. Following the killing of dozens of children and adolescents in the crackdown on the nationwide protests of 2022, opponents refer to the Islamic Republic as the "child-killing government." Nika Shakeri, Sarina Ismailzadeh, Kian Pirfalak, Abolfazl Adinehzadeh, Sepehr Maqsoudi, Foad Nikpour, and Artin Rahmani were among the children and adolescents reportedly killed by government agents. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) also reported in November last year that at least 50 children were killed during the protests in Iran. Additionally, according to Youssef Noori, the former Minister of Education, some detained students last year were sent to psychotherapy centers "for behavior correction." On the other hand, following students' participation in last year's protests, predominantly girls' schools in various cities were targeted for months by suspicious attacks known as chemical attacks. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom reported that while at least thirteen thousand schoolgirls were subjected to serial poisonings in Iranian schools from last winter to this spring, Iranian government officials were unable to investigate the source of these attacks for months. The government has "emptied the content" of the teacher ranking system through "arbitrary implementation"; the government is shirking its responsibilities. Two months after the start of the school year, "schools without teachers" were confirmed despite the minister's denial. The new construction workers' insurance law; a union activist stated that the situation has "worsened than before." A new case has been filed against the spokesperson of the Tehran Teachers' Union. Four members of the Bushehr Teachers' Union were sentenced to "imprisonment and lashes." Reza Aghdasi, a labor activist, was tried in the Islamic Revolutionary Court in Tehran. Osman Ismaili, a labor activist, was sentenced to 16 months in prison.