Seven Labor Activists Summoned to Court in Sanandaj, Saqqez, and Tehran

Seven labor activists in Sanandaj, Saqqez, and Tehran have been summoned to the courts in these cities in recent days. According to the Telegram channel of the Labor Rights Defenders Association, five members of the Coordination Committee to Help Establish Labor Organizations and the Free Workers Union of Iran have been summoned for questioning at the Fourth Branch of the Revolutionary Court in Sanandaj and must appear in court on March 5. The charges against Ghaleb Hosseini, Khaled Hosseini, Mozaffar Saleh-Nia, Sharif Saeed-Panah, and Habibollah Karimi are reported to be related to their participation in the Nowruz ceremony of 2017. The Labor Rights Defenders Association stated that around 80 individuals have been summoned and interrogated in connection with the Nowruz 2017 ceremony in Sanandaj. Additionally, Mahmoud Salehi, a labor activist in Kurdistan, announced on his Facebook page that Najibe Salehzadeh, his wife, has been summoned to the Saqqez Prosecutor's Office due to what he described as a complaint from the Saqqez Intelligence Office. According to Salehi, the Third Branch of the Saqqez Judiciary informed Ms. Salehzadeh via phone on January 21 to present herself to the same branch by January 26. The reason for her summons is reported to be a 'report from the Saqqez Intelligence Office' against her. Meanwhile, the Syndicate of Workers of the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company reported that Davood Razavi, a board member of this labor organization, has been summoned again to Branch 36 of the Revolutionary Court despite having his appeal hearing on November 4. Razavi and Ibrahim Madadi, the vice president of the Syndicate, were arrested at their homes two days before International Workers' Day on May 1, 2015, and after 22 days of temporary detention, they were released on a bail of 100 million tomans. Razavi was later sentenced to five years in prison, while Madadi received a five-year and four-month sentence. The Syndicate noted that their arrest was aimed at preventing the organization from holding International Workers' Day celebrations among the bus drivers. In this context, the Labor Rights Defenders Association described Razavi's summons to the Revolutionary Court as a 'new move by the judiciary' against labor activists. In recent years, numerous reports have emerged regarding security and judicial actions against workers and labor activists in various regions of Iran. Among the widely reported incidents were the ban on gatherings and strikes by workers in the special economic zone of Imam Khomeini Port by the judiciary of Khuzestan province in December 2013, the loss of Mahmoud Salehi's kidneys in the Sanandaj Intelligence Office in May 2015, and the implementation of lash sentences for 17 dismissed workers from the Agh Dareh gold mine in West Azerbaijan province in May 2016. Meanwhile, several labor and union activists such as Reza Shahabi, Ismail Abdi, Mokhtar Asadi, and Mohsen Omrani are imprisoned on security charges. The security and judicial actions against labor and union activists have drawn criticism from human rights organizations and labor unions worldwide. This occurs while officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran claim to support labor organization and union activities, a claim rejected by human rights organizations and labor unions globally.