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To: Guy Ryder, the honourable General Secretary of the ICFTU
Amnesty International
All trade unions and human rights organisations
I hereby would like to inform you that at 2 a.m. on Sunday 7 August my husband, Borhan Divangar, was arrested and taken into custody by the forces of the Islamic Republic without any legal sanction. They took Borhan to court on Sunday and since then we have had no news of him. Borhan is a member of the Saghez Bakery Workers’ Union and one of the workers who, charged with organising a Labour Day rally, were arrested on May Day 2005 in Saghez. His and his six friends’ trial has been continuing for about 18 months and is still ongoing. The security forces did not even wait for the sentence of their own court and took him from our midst in this way at night. Borhan is one of the activists of the Committee in Pursuit of Independent Workers’ Organisations in Iran , a member of the Founding Committee of the General Organisation of Unemployed Workers and also the Secretary of the Association for the Defence of Children’s Rights in Saghez.
During the past few days I have approached the authorities of the Islamic Republic on many occasions in order to meet him. I have not received a reply and have returned home without visiting him. The authorities of the Islamic Republic, without any evidence, stormed into the house in the middle of the night and in front of my worried eyes - I am three weeks from giving birth - and in front of the worried eyes of my young child, took Borhan with them. These gentlemen did not stop there and took the computer, all the floppy disks and Association for the Defence of Children’s Rights in Saghez documents and anything else they wanted with them.
Borhan’s crime is to defend workers’ rights, to defend humanity and to defend children and to struggle against mockery and persecution. The arrest and imprisonment of Borhan is an act that is against the law and against human rights and I strongly condemn it. At the same time I see the authorities of the Islamic Republic as being responsible for Borhan’s life, responsible for any harm that may come to my young child because of this shock, and any complications that I may have with the pregnancy or my foetus.
I would like to appeal to all of you, and all those who can hear my plea, to support myself and my young child in saving my husband, Borhan Divangar.
Maryam Akhazpoor
9 August 2005
Translated by Amin Kazemi of the Iranian Workers’ Solidarity Network
http://www.pishtaaz.com/iwsn - iranwsn@yahoo.co.uk