Ismail Abdi, Teacher Rights Activist, Sentenced to Six Years in Prison

On Tuesday, March 3, the Teacher and Worker Rights Information Center reported that Ismail Abdi, a teacher rights activist, has been sentenced to six years in prison. According to this report, the verdict was communicated to Payman Haj Mahmoud Attar, the lawyer for this imprisoned teacher, on Tuesday. Mr. Abdi was arrested on Saturday, June 26, after visiting the Judicial Deputy of the Prosecutor's Office. A week prior, when he intended to travel to Armenia and obtain a Canadian visa to attend the seventh congress of the World Teachers' Organization, he was informed at the border that he was banned from leaving the country and was asked to visit the Judicial Deputy of the Prosecutor's Office. Mr. Abdi had been arrested four times between 2006 and 2009. In 2011, he was sentenced to ten years in prison by the Revolutionary Court of Tehran on security charges. Before Mr. Abdi's arrest in June of this year, the Kalemeh website, close to Mir Hossein Mousavi, reported that Mr. Abdi had been summoned to the Ministry of Intelligence in Tehran in May and, after three hours of interrogation, was threatened that if he did not resign from his position, his ten-year prison sentence would be enforced. This teacher rights activist did resign from his position, but the Iranian Teachers' Trade Association did not accept it. Currently, in addition to Mr. Abdi, several other teachers, including Alireza Hashemi and Abdolreza Ghanbari, are imprisoned on political charges. Meanwhile, Mahmoud Beheshti Langaroudi, the spokesperson for the Iranian Teachers' Trade Association, has been sentenced to nine years in prison. Additionally, imprisoned teacher Rasoul Badaghi, whose six-year prison sentence ended in August, has been sentenced to another three years in prison. In this context, two teacher rights activists have been transferred to Evin Prison, and teachers arrested during a gathering in front of the Parliament have been 'released'. There have been reports of the 'arrest' of several protesting teachers in front of the Parliament in Tehran, as well as the arrest of the Secretary-General of the Iranian Teachers' Trade Association. On Labor Day, a labor organization criticized the chanting of slogans against foreign workers. Protests by Iranian teachers have been held in several cities, and a decision has been made to hold a silent gathering of Iranian teachers.