ITF backs new Amnesty campaign on Iran

10 June 2011
ITF backs new Amnesty campaign on Iran

The ITF has voiced its support for a new Amnesty International initiative being launched in Geneva, Switzerland, today to combat repression against workers in Iran

Amnesty is releasing a new report, Determined to Live in Dignity: Iranian Trade Unionists Struggle for Rights, which details the kind of persecution meted out to those who dare to try and use their right to find a voice through independent trade unions.

Amnesty International has announced that, in partnership with the global unions and the ITUC, (International Trade Union Confederation), it is launching a campaign to support Iranian trade unions in their struggle for basic human and labour rights, ahead of the second anniversary of the 2009 Iran presidential elections.

Speaking from Geneva, ITF general secretary David Cockroft said: “The ITF and its colleagues in the international trade union movement are delighted to actively support this campaign. As the example of Mansour Osanloo has shown, international union and human rights campaigns can be the only thing keeping some of these brave men and women alive.

“We have to continue to swing a huge amount of international solidarity behind people like Mansour’s colleagues, Reza Shahabi and Ebrahim Madadi, and all those in danger in Iran.”

Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International’s director for the Middle East and North Africa, said: “Independent trade unionists have been made to pay a heavy price by a government that has shown itself increasingly intolerant of dissent.

“The harassment and persecution they face smacks of a desperate government attempt to stave off social unrest that could arise from new hikes in the costs of fuel and power to which Iranians are now being exposed.”

Sharan Burrow, ITUC general secretary, added: “The international trade union movement is closely involved in this campaign, and we will be dedicating all our efforts to defending the rights of Iranian workers in the face of the appalling state repression so many of them are facing.”

For more details of today’s launch, please see www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=19508

ENDS

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