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Statement from ITF president Paddy Crumlin on the release of Mansour Osanloo
6 June 2011
Commenting on the release of Mansour Osanloo, ITF president Paddy Crumlin stated: “Mansour Osanloo's release from jail in Tehran is a victory for human rights and testament to the determined campaign by trade unions and human rights activists around the world.
“While the imposition of a good behaviour bond is not the unconditional release and full pardon that was sought by both the ITF and Mansour's union, Vahed, it is nonetheless welcome.
“Mansour Osanloo has suffered immeasurably while imprisoned, simply for doing something many of us take for granted - joining his trade union.
“While the news from Iran is welcome, the campaign to free Mansour's Vahed comrades, Reza Shahabi and Ebrahim Madadi, continues.
“We will continue to insist that workers like Mansour Osanloo - a bus driver from Tehran - are able to exercise the basic human right of collective bargaining and the right to join a trade union.
“And we will fight to have unions like Vahed and others freed from government repression.”
BACKGROUND
Mansour Osanloo was a bus driver and one of the founding members of the Vahed Syndicate, a free trade union representing Tehran's bus workers. From its beginnings in 2005 the ITF-affiliated union was subjected to heavy repression, including repeated attacks and arrests. Mansour Osanloo was heavily targeted. As well as being beaten up and having his tongue slit he was imprisoned in 2005 and 2006. Then in 2007, just one month after visiting the London head office of the ITF and meeting trade unionists in Brussels, he was arrested. Three months later he was sentenced to five years imprisonment on charges of ‘acting against national security’ and ‘propaganda against the state’; in 2010 another year was added to his sentence. In reality his only offence was to help found a genuinely democratic trade union.
ENDS
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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