2017-08-29

The inhumane regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran has intensified the attack on the activists in the workers’ movement. Freed workers and activists are again called back to prisons. Following the intensification of repression and pressure, some of the political prisoners at the Rajaei Shahr Prison and other prisons around Iran have gone on hunger strike. Reza Shahabi, Iranian labor activist, is one of them. A new sentence has been issued against Ali Nejati, the leader of Haft Tapeh Sugar Cane Syndicate. Shahpour Ehsani Rad has been sentenced to a medieval verdict of whipping. Mahmoud Salehi, Davoud Razavi, Ebrahim Madadi and many other labor and civil rights activists have open legal cases and can be detained anytime.  Female activists like Zeinab Jalalian, Athena Daemi, Narges Mohammadi, Golrokh Ebrahimi, other activists like Saeed Masuri, Arash Sadeghi, Saeed Shirzad, Loghman and Zaniar Moradi and dozens of other civil rights, women’s rights and children’s rights activists are in prison. Teachers’ representatives like Esmail Abdi and Mohsen Omrani are still in jail and their primary human rights are being violated in prison.

Reza Shahabi, a member of the board of directors of the Workers’ Union of the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company, went on hunger strike immediately after his incarceration on August 9, 2017 in Rajaei Shahr Prison in Karaj, Iran to protest being returned to prison after he was released as well in protest to the illegal and unjust actions of the prison authorities and the Iranian Judiciary.

The prosecutor had told Shahabi that he only had to spend three more months in prison to cover the time he was free on medical leave, but after he went back to prison he realized that the authorities were not only going to make him serve five months for the time he spent outside prison for medical treatment, but also enforce a previous one-year conviction which means that he has to stay in prison until December 2018.

According to the latest comments from his wife, Reza Shahabi’s life is in great danger. He has been denied any medical assistance and treatment. The authorities have left him in his cell between life and death on the twentieth day of his hunger strike. The Iranian regime is planning to let Reza Shahabi die in prison as they did with another Iranian revolutionary worker Shahrokh Zamani and dozens of other political prisoners who died in prison. According to Reza’s family, he has been transferred to the hall 10 of Rajaei Shahr Prison, a place where political prisoners are held. Prisoners in this ward are deprived from minimum hygiene products and facilities. 

Iranian workers call for immediate international class solidarity. Reza Shahabi is being jailed again to put pressure on the bus company workers and prevent them from fighting for their just rights and demands. Iran workers and labor activists are jailed just because they demand their unpaid wages, while the corrupt oligarchs who have been stealing billions of dollars from public assets and refuse to pay workers’ wages are walking freely out there. During recent weeks, we have been witnessing the attacks on Haft Tapeh Sugar cane workers, on teachers and other labor activists and the arrest of many workers.

The International Bureau of the Communist Party of Iran calls on all the labor organizations around the world to send their protests and put pressure on the Iranian regime and its judicial authorities to immediately release Reza Shahabi and all other labor activists and political prisoners that are on hunger strike.

The International Bureau of the Communist Party of Iran