Join London vigil for Iranian trade unionists
If you're in or near London, and you can spare even a few minutes between noon and 2 p.m. on Thursday August 9, please join a protest vigil at the Iranian embassy in solidarity with the imprisoned trade union leaders Mansour Osanloo and Mahmoud Salehi.
The vigil-- opposite the embassy at Princes Gate, London SW7 (nearest tube: Knightsbridge)-- will be part of an international day of action called by the International Transport Workers' Federation to support Iranian trade unionists suffering repression by their government.
Osanloo, leader of the Tehran bus workers' union, was seized last month from a bus in Tehran, shortly after returning home from meetings with trade unionists in London and Brussels. He is being held in Evin prison, charged with "conspiring against national security.
Salehi, a founding member of the Saqez Bakery Workers’ Association and of the Coordinating Committee to Form Workers’ Organisations, is currently imprisoned in Sanandaj in the Kurdistan Province, the ITF reports, and "[t]here is firm evidence that Salehi’s health is deteriorating owing to inadequate medical care in prison."
The British train drivers' union ASLEF is publicizing the vigil on its website. Another transport union, the RMT, has a link on its home page to news of Osanloo's arrest. However a third transport union, the T&GWU, so far has nothing on its website about the vigil or Osanloo or the Tehran bus workers' struggle. (You can, however, read general secretary Tony Woodley's one-sided condemnation of Israel during last summer's war against Hezbollah, as well as a report of the union's call for a boycott of Israeli goods.) I hope that changes before next Thursday.
The vigil-- opposite the embassy at Princes Gate, London SW7 (nearest tube: Knightsbridge)-- will be part of an international day of action called by the International Transport Workers' Federation to support Iranian trade unionists suffering repression by their government.
Osanloo, leader of the Tehran bus workers' union, was seized last month from a bus in Tehran, shortly after returning home from meetings with trade unionists in London and Brussels. He is being held in Evin prison, charged with "conspiring against national security.
Salehi, a founding member of the Saqez Bakery Workers’ Association and of the Coordinating Committee to Form Workers’ Organisations, is currently imprisoned in Sanandaj in the Kurdistan Province, the ITF reports, and "[t]here is firm evidence that Salehi’s health is deteriorating owing to inadequate medical care in prison."
The British train drivers' union ASLEF is publicizing the vigil on its website. Another transport union, the RMT, has a link on its home page to news of Osanloo's arrest. However a third transport union, the T&GWU, so far has nothing on its website about the vigil or Osanloo or the Tehran bus workers' struggle. (You can, however, read general secretary Tony Woodley's one-sided condemnation of Israel during last summer's war against Hezbollah, as well as a report of the union's call for a boycott of Israeli goods.) I hope that changes before next Thursday.
ABF, for the promotion of human rights and democracy in Iran
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