Reza Shahabi, Labor Activist, Released from Prison

Reza Shahabi, a board member of the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company, was released from Evin Prison on the night of March 13. According to the Committee for the Follow-up of the Establishment of Labor Organizations and the Campaign to Defend Reza Shahabi, Evin Prison officials informed him that his release order was issued based on the law of consolidation of sentences. The report states that Shahabi has not yet received the release letter and has been informed that he must pay a fine of 6,800,000 tomans. Additionally, he has been told that he is prohibited from union activities and participation in parties and groups for two years. The report indicates that Shahabi must go to Rajai Shahr Prison in Karaj for settlement. On August 9, after presenting himself to Rajai Shahr Prison, he learned that his medical leave had not been accepted by the prosecutor's office and that he would have to remain in prison for about another thousand days. He was arrested by security forces in June 2010 and subsequently sentenced by the Islamic Revolutionary Court to five years in prison, six years of deprivation of union activity, and a fine of seven million tomans on security charges. In recent years, Shahabi underwent two surgeries on his neck and back due to what the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company described as 'physical injuries resulting from the violent treatment by security forces during his arrest and interrogation.' His medical leave was gradually approved by forensic medicine until the end of his imprisonment. After being imprisoned again in August this year, he went on a 50-day hunger strike to demand his release, which he ended after a promise from a 'high-ranking security official' and requests from his family, colleagues, and labor organizations in Iran and worldwide. This was while Shahabi had suffered two strokes in recent months, and according to a specialist doctor at Imam Khomeini Hospital in Tehran, his body could not withstand prison conditions. Nevertheless, judicial officials had only recently transferred Shahabi from Rajai Shahr Prison to Evin Prison, and according to labor organizations, they had not taken any action towards his release or treatment of his illnesses. This situation has drawn severe criticism from labor organizations, international labor unions, and human rights organizations, which have repeatedly called for his release.