Mahmoud Salehi's health is deteriorating!

Mahmoud Salehi, the leader of the Saghez Bakers' Union and one of the 'Saghez seven' labour activists, was re-arrested on 9 April.

During a recent visit by his wife, and phone conversations with friends, he has complained of having trouble with his kidney. He has been refused painkillers by his jailers. There is nothing new in the Iranian regime's mistreatment of Salehi: following his fifth arrest in late August 2000, Mahmoud Salehi, who has just one kidney, was made seriously ill by the appalling prison conditions and lack of medical care.

His re-arrest - just three weeks before May Day - was clearly meant as a warning to all activists and was an attempt at dampening down May Day celebrations in Saghez, Sanandaj and elsewhere in Iranian Kurdistan. The Iranian regime's security forces also aimed this at all other labour activists and workers throughout Iran who find that the double pressures of economic hardship and the lack of basic trade union rights are taking their lives closer to the edge. These conditions have given rise to ever more radical and bolder May Day ceremonies and rallies that pose many independent slogans.

Mahmoud Salehi is one of the main figures of this resurgent labour movement and has a long history of struggling for basic trade union rights. For over a decade he has been a tireless fighter for labour rights in Iran. He is close to hearts of many people in Iranian Kurdistan and is held in high regard throughout the independent labour movement in Iran.

His current arrest relates to the attempt by a number of activists to hold a rally in Saghez on May Day 2004. Salehi was accused of supporting banned political parties, forming an illegal workers' committee to serve the objectives of Komala, issuing a statement condemning the government for the killing of Khatoonabad workers, acts against national security, taking part in an "illegal gathering" and so on. He has been sentenced to five year imprisonment and three years internal exile.

Iranian Workers' Solidarity Network and Workers' Action Committee (Iran) condemn Mahmoud Salehi's re-arrest and call on all labour activists to step up the international campaign to free him.

Iranian Workers' Solidarity Network
Workers' Action Committee (Iran)
5 June 2007