Oil Workers Wage Strikes in Solidarity with Nationwide Anti-State Demonstrations October 10, 2022 – The government in Iran must immediately halt its use of lethal force against civilian protesters, including in the besieged province of Kurdistan, where at least four people were reportedly killed and ...
Less than a month after the intelligence chief of the Iranian military’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was replaced, a crackdown on dissent is being ramped up in the country ...
Same Efforts Applied to Nuclear Deal Can and Should Be Given to Human Rights President Biden Has Also Remained Silent on State’s Violent Crackdown in Iran June 27, 2022 - European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, who has traveled travel to Tehran and issued multiple public ...
On May 9, 2022, Anisha Asadollahi and her husband, Keyvan Mohtadi, both labor rights activists, were arrested by security forces in Tehran after serving as translators for two French nationals who were arrested a few days later. Teachers in Iran had been waging large ...
Open Letter Condemns Iran’s “Brutal Repression” of Trade Unions and Labor Activists June 2, 2022—In an open letter to the delegates at the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) 110th Session of the International Labour Conference, currently being held in Geneva, Switzerland, the Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations, ...
Amid an intensifying campaign of political repression in Iran, state authorities have been summoning, detaining, and imprisoning peaceful labor rights activists and a journalist in various cities throughout the country. A lawyer who has represented several labor activists could also soon be sent to prison for ...
Sattar Rahmani, a former teacher and political prisoner in Iran, is an expert on the country's burgeoning teachers' rights movement. A grassroots teachers’ rights movement is gaining steam in Iran, where large street protests by teachers are increasingly sprouting ...
Teachers and supporters protested in the streets of more than 119 Iranian cities across Iran ...
One of the few remaining defense lawyers in Iran willing to take on human rights cases, Nasser Zarafshan is an expert at navigating the Islamic Republic’s judicial system, which criminalizes dissent and imprisons lawyers like Zarafshan for doing their job. Usually tried under trumped-up “national security” ...
Incoming President Raisi’s Record of Violence against Protesters Increases Concerns June 29, 2021—The continuation of strikes in Iran’s critical oil and petrochemical facilities—not seen on this scale for more than four decades—and the massive show of support from workers in other sectors, may well be a turning ...
The state policy of persecuting and imprisoning independent defense lawyers under false charges for doing their jobs is continuing under Iranian Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raisi, who is running for the presidency in June 2021. In addition to at least four defense attorneys who are currently imprisoned in ...
Unpaid Wages and Benefits, Unfair Wages Trigger Increasingly Organized Strikes Labor Activists Jailed Under Trumped-Up Charges April 30, 2021 – As International Labor Day approaches, workers across Iran are facing a deepening crisis and inability to meet their most basic economic needs, as reflected in the growing ...
Protests in Iran over high inflation and unpaid wages are spreading in Iran as the working class and retirees struggle to make ends meet. The largest organized rallies were held by retirees who are unable to support themselves on their small pensions. They were joined ...
Labor Ministry Calculations Ignore Actual Rate of Inflation At the end of every year in Iran, the Labor Ministry sets the national minimum wage for the following year, determining a base income for more than 40 million Iranian workers. For the Persian year 1400, starting ...
Suicides increased in Iran in 2020, according to state medical data. Blue-collar workers as well as students who’ve been disproportionately impacted by the country’s struggling economy dominated media reports of people taking their own lives. The victims include an 11-year-old boy in Bushehr, located on the Persian Gulf coast, ...
On January 10, 2021, Iranian retirees gathered in front of government buildings in at least 19 cities including--Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, and Yazd--to protest the government’s lack of response to their demands. The protesters, who receive retirement checks from the State Welfare Organization's (SWO) pension fund, ...
Rushed Convictions Show Judiciary Willing to Do Bidding of Intelligence Forces State Responds to Growing Societal Discontent with Intensified Efforts to Silence All Dissent October 1, 2020—In a blatant move to keep political prisoners in Iran behind bars despite completing their sentences, judicial authorities in Iran are increasingly issuing ...
Court Annuls Privatization of Company but Unpaid Wages and Withheld Insurance Benefits Persist “We are going to witness a big wave of labor protests spreading from the south to other parts of the country” It has been almost three months since the workers at Iran’s Haft Tappeh Cane ...
Keyvan Samimi Sees Worsening Fear and Repression in Iran The veteran journalist and political activist Keyvan Samimi must report to Evin Prison to begin serving a three-year prison sentence for his peaceful activism and reporting. On August 21, Samimi posted a screenshot of an electronic summons from ...
Jafar Azimzadeh Should Have Been Released, Instead Given Another 13 Months Now Activist Has Contracted COVID-19 in Iran’s Overcrowded Prisons The prominent labor activist Jafar Azimzadeh, who should have been released from prison in February 2020 as part of a broad state-issued pardon and who has since ...
Twelve Test Positive, Many Others with Symptoms, None Receiving Proper Treatment Prominent Labor Activists, Lawyer and Journalist Among Those Falling Ill August 11, 2020—Political prisoners in Iran—including prominent labor leaders Esmail Abdi and Jafar Azimzadeh, the human rights attorney Amirsalar Davouudi, the journalist Majid Azarpey ...
New Fact Sheet Highlights Widespread Rights Abuses, Protests Likely to Continue August 4, 2020—With workers in Iran’s critical oil refining, petrochemicals and drilling industries striking in southern Iran over working conditions and unpaid wages since July 31, and sugar mill workers in Khuzestan Province protesting unpaid wages since ...
She Must Serve Five-year Sentence for Reporting on Peaceful Labor Rally Freelance reporter Sepideh Qoliyan, issued a five-year sentence for reporting on a peaceful rally by sugar mill workers for unpaid wages, has had to report to prison to begin serving her sentence—even though some of her ...
Old Suspended Sentence Resurrected to Keep Esmail Abdi Behind Bars Imprisoned teachers’ rights activist Esmail Abdi, who has been serving a six-year prison sentence since 2016 for his peaceful teachers’ rights activism, is facing additional years in prison with the enforcement of a suspended sentence issued a ...
Nine Labor Rights Activists and Journalists Sentenced to Prison Without Right to Appeal Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raisi Eliminated Appeal Process with Supreme Leader’s Blessing Nine labor activists were each sentenced to five years in prison on December 14, 2019, on the charge of “assembly and collusion against national security” at Branch ...