CLOSED: Mansour Ossanlu and Mahmoud Salehi- Iran

Trade unionists jailed and denied medical treatment

Mansour Ossanlu and Mahmoud Salehi have long suffered persecution by the Iranian authorities, spending several periods in prison because of their legitimate and peaceful activities as trade union activists and human rights defenders. Mansour Ossanlu was detained on 10 July 2007 after meeting international union colleagues in Europe. Mahmoud Salehi began his sentence on 9 April 2007. Amnesty International considers them prisoners of conscience and is concerned for their health.

Update: 7 April 2008

Mahmoud Salehi was released from prison on the morning of Sunday 6 April and is now back homewith his family and receiving many visitors who wish to welcome him back.

We hope that he will also now receive the urgent specialist medical treatment that was denied him in jail. Amnesty, in partnership with the global union federations, will continue to work tirelessly to ensure that he and fellow trade unionists in Iran are able to enjoy the fundamental rights of association, freedom of expression and labour rights which he and others have fought so hard, despite huge personal and community sacrifices, to defend and promote. We will post further news as we have it. Thank you to all those who took action on this case.

However, Mahmoud Salehi's fellow trade unionist Manslour Ossanlu remains imprisoned. Please continue to take action for Manslour Ossanlu.

Mansour Ossanlu, head of the Union of Workers of the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company, spent nine months in detention between December 2005 and December 2006 for his trade union activities and was facing trial when, on 10 July 2007, he was reportedly pushed into a car and beaten. Two days later it was reported he was being held in Evin Prison, Tehran. He has been refused medical treatment and his health is deteriorating. Mansour Ossanlu’s union is not recognised and has been subject to repeated harassment. In January 2006 up to 1,000 members were arrested after striking to demand union recognition and Mansour Ossanlu’s release from an earlier period of detention.

Mahmoud Salehi, spokesman for the Organisational Committee to Establish Trade Unions, former President of the Saqez Bakery Workers’ Association and co-founder of the Coordinating Committee to Form Workers’ Organisations, was imprisoned on 9 April 2007.

He was arrested after a peaceful demonstration to celebrate May Day 2004 but subsequently released on bail. In November 2005 he was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment and three years’ internal exile. At his trial his union activities and meetings with foreign unions were cited as evidence against him. His conviction was then overturned but after a retrial he was sentenced on 11 November 2006 to four years’ imprisonment for ‘conspiring to commit crimes against national security’, later reduced to one years’ imprisonment and a three-year suspended sentence.

Mahmoud Salehi has only one kidney, is reported to be suffering from kidney stones, heart and intestinal problems, and requires dialysis treatment, but is allegedly not receiving adequate medical treatment.

The global trade union movement has vigorously taken up these cases, and Amnesty International supported a Global Action Day for Mahmoud Salehi and Mansour Ossanlu called by the International Trade Union Confederation and International Transport Workers’ Federation on 9 August 2007. On the same day, five executive members of Mansour Ossanlu’s union were detained while carrying out their own protest outside of the Mansour Ossanlu family home.

Find out more about Amnesty's work on trade unions | Watch a video about Mansour Ossanlu

Trade unionists jailed and denied medical treatment

Mansour Ossanlu and Mahmoud Salehi have long suffered persecution by the Iranian authorities, spending several periods in prison because of their legitimate and peaceful activities as trade union activists and human rights defenders. Mansour Ossanlu was detained on 10 July 2007 after meeting international union colleagues in Europe. Mahmoud Salehi began his sentence on 9 April 2007. Amnesty International considers them prisoners of conscience and is concerned for their health.

Update: 7 April 2008

Mahmoud Salehi was released from prison on the morning of Sunday 6 April and is now back homewith his family and receiving many visitors who wish to welcome him back.

We hope that he will also now receive the urgent specialist medical treatment that was denied him in jail. Amnesty, in partnership with the global union federations, will continue to work tirelessly to ensure that he and fellow trade unionists in Iran are able to enjoy the fundamental rights of association, freedom of expression and labour rights which he and others have fought so hard, despite huge personal and community sacrifices, to defend and promote. We will post further news as we have it. Thank you to all those who took action on this case.

However, Mahmoud Salehi's fellow trade unionist Manslour Ossanlu remains imprisoned. Please continue to take action for Manslour Ossanlu.

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