Free all members of the "Coordinating Committee to Help Form Workers’ Organizations" in Iran

WHEREAS: We are seriously concerned about the safety of detained members of "Coordinating Committee to Help Form Workers’ Organizations". They have been imprisoned--and mistreated--solely for their peaceful exercise of workers' rights to freedom of expression and freedom of association; They are: Mitra Homayooni, Reyhaneh Ansari, Alireza Asgari, Saeed Marzaban, Cyrus Fathi, Masoud Salimpour, Maziar Mehrpour, Jalil Mohammadi and Faramarz Fetrat Nejad. Many more labour activists have been arrested, imprisoned, persecuted and sacked form their workplaces. The repression of the Iranian labor movement has been intensifying.

AND WHEREAS: Article 22 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Iran is a signatory state, specifies that “everyone shall have the right to freedom of association with others, including the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of his/her interests;

THEREFORE: We the undersigned strongly condemn the recent raid and arrests of over 60 workers in Karaj, and we demand that the international community declare all the members of "Coordinating Committee" continued detention illegal and bring all possible pressure to bear upon the Islamic Republic of Iran to immediately and unconditionally release them, and all other imprisoned labor activists in Iran.