Statement by Tudeh Party of Iran

Four members of the board of directors of the Syndicate of Workers of Haft Tappeh Sugar Cane Company were summoned by the intelligence forces and were sent to Dezful prison to serve their terms.

Ali Nejati, the president of the board of directors, wrote a letter and called upon all the workers and working people of the country to lend their helping hands and protest these unjust sentences. The letter stresses: “We have strived to secure our rights and to defend the legitimate demands of Haft Tappeh workers and to gain the bare minimum means of subsistence and human dignity, but we are sentenced and imprisoned... We know that forming independent workers organizations is the inalienable right of workers. While the employers organize freely, those workers who form their sovereign organizations are sentenced and imprisoned. We believe that we workers will be able to win our demands and wishes only through own efforts and unity and solidarity. I and my fellow workers at the Syndicate of Workers of Haft Tappeh Sugar Cane Company will be in jail for six months... Today is the day to support those workers in Haft Tappeh who have struggled for the workers’ rights and were elected by Haft Tappeh workers to represent them in an independent organization, and today are being sentenced to jail only because of defending their labour rights... I hope we would strive to form our independent labor organizations through stronger unity and solidarity so that we can achieve our legitimate rights and demands! Wishing for ever increasing unity of the workers!”

The trial and incarceration of the union activists reveals the true nature of the theocratic regime of Velayat-e Faqih (Supreme Leadership) and the anti-national coup-born government. Such actions cannot weaken the Iranian working class' resolve for their trade-political rights, including their right to revive and organize independent unions. Furthermore, in the current situation, summoning and jailing labour activists means threatening the working people. The putschists' goal is to avoid the spread of workers struggles and their joining with the general movement against the election coup in the country.

Tudeh Party of Iran strongly condemns the arrest and incarceration of the members of the board of directors of the Syndicate of Workers of Haft Tappeh Sugar Cane Company and calls for their immediate release and the recognition of the workers inalienable right to organize trade unions. Revival of the workers’ trade union rights and confronting the anti-labor policies of the ruling reaction is tied to the firm alignment with the general anti-despotic movement in the country.

Freedom for all the Political Prisoners!

Freedom for the Incarcerated Workers and Union Activists!