Fourteen teacher unionists have been detained in a Tehran detention centre for a couple of hours on 7 October for scheduling a peaceful protest, and threatened to be arrested again if participating in the protest planned for 8 October.
This is the latest episode to date in the on-going teacher union harassment in Iran.
While the school year resumed on 23 September, six members of the Coordinating Council of the Iranian Teachers Trade Associations (CCITTA), affiliated to Education International (EI), are still in jail:
· Alireza Hashemi, detained since 2007;
· Abdolreza Ghanbari, detained since January 2010. Firstly sentenced to death for enmity against God, a Revolutionary Court commuted his sentence to a 15 year-imprisonment In June 2013;
· Rasoul Bodaghi, detained since September 2009. Despite finishing his six-year jail term, new charges have been brought against him and he now awaits a new verdict against him;
· Ali Akbar Baghani, detained since April 2010;
· Esmael Abdi, jailed since 27 June 2015; and
· Mahmoud Beheshti Langroodi, arrested on 6 September 2015.
Also, three education and child rights activists were arrested between 22 and 31 August 2015, namely: Mohammad Reza Niknejad, Mehdi Bohlooli and Milad Darvish.
The ITTA Tehran board member Mahmoud Bagheri was nevertheless released on 17 August 2015, after being imprisoned for 44 months.
The Resolution on Iran adopted at the 7th EI World Congress held in July 2015 in Ottawa, Canada, condemns acts of intimidation targeting teachers and unionists, and calls on the Iranian authorities to commit to fully respecting international labour standards.
Education International will continue to advocate the release from prison of Iranian teacher trade unionists who have been imprisoned unjustly, including during a possible mission to Iran.