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Iran govt latest jail move ‘deliberate insult to UN’

15 February 2010

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The ITF has condemned the latest reported targeting of imprisoned trade union leader Mansour Osanloo by the Iranian authorities.

Sources within Iran are reporting that Osanloo and another political prisoner at the Rajai Shar prison have been questioned, threatened and are being moved into solitary confinement. Early indications are that the reports are correct.

Speaking from Geneva, where he is attending the United Nations Universal Periodic Review* on Iran’s human rights record, Mac Urata, ITF Inland Transport Secretary, described the move as “a slap in the face of world opinion”.

“If this is true,” he added, “then it’s an apparently deliberate attempt to flaunt the regime’s dirty tactics and advertise its belief that the accepted standards of basic justice don’t apply in Iran.”

“What’s worrying is that as a result of past beatings and his unfair imprisonment, Mansour’s health has been bad for years. The move to solitary confinement usually involves even worse conditions than normal, including reduced medical attention and food and, more worryingly, it can be accompanied by beatings or even torture.”

Mac Urata concluded: “We are demanding that the Iranian government either immediately prove that these reports are untrue or return Mansour to hospital, preparatory to freeing him from the politically motivated charges under which he and others have been imprisoned. If this latest intimidation is proven to be true then the UN’s work to improve human rights in Iran has just received a significant challenge. It is open to question whether this attempt to break Mansour’s spirit has something to do with his trade union giving testimony to the UN today on offences against human and labour rights in Iran (see attached document). It is sure to be of great concern to the rally organised by 30 human rights and Iranian political organisations that is being held outside the UN offices in Geneva today”

The ITF’s General Secretary, David Cockroft has today also written to the President of Iran to question the latest report of moves against Mansour Osanloo and once again demand his release.

In July 2007 Mansour Osanloo, now aged 50, President of the ITF-affiliated Vahed Syndicate (Tehran Bus Workers’ Union) was dragged from a Tehran bus by armed men who only weeks later were identified as Iranian security forces. This followed previous attacks and intimidation and happened only three weeks after his attendance at international union meetings organised by the ITF and the ITUC in London and Brussels.

In October of that year Osanloo was sentenced to five years imprisonment on charges of ‘acting against national security’ and ‘propaganda against the state’, neither of which constitutes, in practice, recognisable criminal offences. In reality his only ‘crime’ has been to help found a genuinely democratic trade union for his fellow bus drivers.

ENDS

* For more details of UN UPR: www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBODIES/UPR/Pages/UPRMain.aspx

For more information contact ITF press officer, Sam Dawson.
Direct line: + 44 (0)20 7940 9260.
Email: dawson_sam@itf.org.uk

International Transport Workers' Federation - ITF:
HEAD OFFICE
ITF House, 49 - 60 Borough Road, London SE1 1DS
Tel: + 44 (0) 20 7403 2733
Fax: + 44 (0) 20 7375 7871
Email: mail@itf.org.uk
Web: www.itfglobal.org

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