Iranian labour rights leader arrives on UK visit

Iranian labour rights leader arrives on UK visit

Mansour Osanloo, a trade union leader who has fought back against a two year Iranian government campaign of arrests and beatings, today arrived in the UK to speak at a London conference.

Despite fears that he would be detained in Tehran, he arrived at (London’s) Heathrow Airport this afternoon, ready for his appearance at a meeting tomorrow (Wednesday). During this he will be available to brief press on conditions in Iran and on his and his colleagues’ two year struggle to establish a free trade union, the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company (Sherkat-e Vahed). Please contact Sam Dawson (details below) to arrange to speak to him.

Mansour Osanloo has been invited to the three day (13-15 June) annual meeting of the ITF’s Road Transport Section, where he plans to tell trade unionists from transport unions around the world about the attempts made since 2005 to create a free and democratic trade union in Iran. The ITF (International Transport Workers’ Federation) has helped lead an international campaign to defend him and his colleagues from the savage and illegal victimisation carried out by Iran’s government, police and security services. This has involved mass arrests, beatings, sackings, imprisonment and death threats. Osanloo has been repeatedly attacked and arrested. In response strikes have been called in Iran and the international trade union movement has mounted worldwide solidarity actions and successfully launched cases at the International Labour Organization (ILO), which has found Iran to be in breach of international conventions, as well as lobbying the European Union, which condemned his ill-treatment (for full details, timeline of events and previous press releases please see www.itfglobal.org/urban-transport/tehranbuses.cfm )

ITF General Secretary David Cockroft said: “For obvious reasons Mansour’s visit has been kept secret until now, and It’s difficult to describe how delighted we are to seen him safely among us, if only for a few days.”

“I’d like to think that his arrival hints at an understanding by Iran that he is doing nothing more than simply abiding by his human right – which that nation has pledged to uphold – to join a trade union. Or maybe it shows that those who have tried to stamp out those rights have realised that every injustice they have perpetrated has only redoubled the efforts of trade unionists worldwide to support and defend their Iranian brothers and sisters. Or, perhaps, their security services are finding it increasingly difficult to monitor the burgeoning numbers of Iranian citizens backing the existence of free trade unions.

“Whichever it is we are relieved and heartened to have Mansour among us, if only for this short time, and will, along with the rest of the world, be closely watching his return.”

ENDS

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