29.05.1997

Killing fields of Iran

The following is a statement of the Executive Committee of the Organisation of Revolutionary Workers of Iran (Rahe Kargar)

According to reliable information received by our organisation, eight political prisoners were put in front of a firing squad by the Islamic regime on February 21 1997 in Tehran. Four members of our organisation were among them. They were:

• Keyvan Shaker: born 1964, political prisoner from 1984-89 in Evin prison.
• Mehrdad Moghadam:born 1961, political prisoner from 1984-89 in Evin prison.
• Alireza Majidi: born 1957, political prisoner from 1984-89 in Evin prison.
• Farhad Ghaem: born 1959, political prisoner from 1984-89 in Evin prison.

Members of our organisation were arrested on April 13 1995, charged with participating in the Islam-Shahr mass uprising which took place during 1995 in the suburbs of Tehran. The people of Islam-Shahr and Akbarabad - two working class towns - protested against the lack of water in their towns and also the rising cost of public transport.

Among those shot were two members of the Fedayis (Minority). They were:

• Mohammad Reza Rasti: political prisoner from 1985-90 in Evin prison.
• Heshat Khodadad: political prisoner from 1983-87 in Evin prison.

The other two executed are from the Bahaiis (a religious minority in Iran).

In addition to those mentioned above, another member of our organisation, Abass Ghadiri (a worker from the Behpush factory) was also captured during the mass uprisings in Islamshahr and put in front of a firing squad on November 1996, along with 11 others.

We also have to advise that the tortured body of comrade Golamreza Afshar - a member of our organisation who spent four years as a political prisoner in Tehran and Tabriz prisons - has been found in Kuwateh, a Pakistani city near the border with Iran. Afshar escaped from Iran to Pakistan to find a safe refuge in a third country. On October 18 1996, with his fiend Ali Molai from the Fedayi, he was travelling to Islamabad in Pakistan to check on their refugee status. They were kidnapped by the Islamic regime’s hit squads. The body of our comrade Golamreza was finally found in a road near Kowetieh on March 5 - he had been tortured and hanged.

On February 16 1997 the oil workers demanded a wage increase and a national contract. Five hundred of them have been arrested in Tehran. Two arrested oil workers, Hashim Kamely and Gholam Barzegar, have been killed in prison.

Faraj Sarkuhi, a literary reviewer and editor of the independent Iranian periodical, Adieneh, has been kidnapped and jailed - some newspapers have been closed, burnt, banned, editors fined and taken to court. A number of writers have been threatened with death, arrested or are found dead under suspicious conditions.

We call on all parties, human rights organisations, all unions and other democratic associations and progressive journalists to disseminate this information and oppose the current wave of repression and atrocities by the Islamic regime - otherwise the Islamic regime will have a free hand in the killing fields.

Resolution on workers’ rights in Iran

The following resolution was passed by a recent national conference of the OILC union in Scotland. ORWI and the Iranian Democracy Solidarity Campaign are asking unions and political organisations to send resolutions to the International Labour Organisation.

This conference resolutely condemns the killing of two Iranian oil workers while on strike on February 16 1997 by the Islamic regime.

This conference resolves that the ILO must pressure the Islamic regime to accept the principal demands of the oil workers and millions of other workers in Iran. These demands are:

1. The right to organise independent trade unions.
2. The right to strike.
3. The right to collective bargaining and national contracts.
4. To free all the imprisoned oil workers and other workers.

If these minimum demands are not met then the ILO should nullify the membership of the Islamic regime.