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2nd May 2004
,Dear
Colleagues and Friends
May
Day has been celebrated every year by workers in the city of
Saghez in the Kurdistan province in Iran.
This year, too, as the Bakery Workers Union and workers
from other sectors were preparing for May Day, the Islamic
Republic authorities tried to sabotage their meetings from the
very start. Yesterday,
the regime’s security forces attacked the workers’ meeting
just as it was getting under way in one of the city’s parks.
Workers were beaten up, threatened and abused and several
activists were arrested. The
ceremony was disrupted.
:Those
detained include
Mahmoud
Salehi
Jalal Hosseini
Borhan Divangard
Mohsen Hakimi
Fakhreddin Vaseli
Esmail Khodkam
Since
the arrests, the security forces have also raided Mahmoud
Salehi’s and Borhan Divangard’s private homes.
Celebrating
May Day is a fundamental right of workers throughout the world.
We should not let these workers languish and be subjected
to abuse and torture in Islamic Republic’s jails for
celebrating May Day and defending workers’ rights.
We
call on all trade unions, labour organisations and human rights
organisations worldwide to strongly condemn the arrest of these
workers and use every initiative to put pressure on the Islamic
Republic to secure the immediate release of the detained workers
in Saghez.
,Regards
Rahman
Hoseinzadeh
,Secretary
-Worker-communist
Party of Iran
Kurdistan
Committee
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