“The NEU condemns the acts of state violence against educators taking part in legitimate protests and calls for the release of teachers arrested ….. in the past week….”

12 May 2022

Dear Comrades,

We write as Joint General Secretaries of the National Education Union (NEU) to express the solidarity of the NEU with teachers and education workers who have been protesting in defence of trade union rights in Iran.

The NEU condemns the acts of state violence against educators taking part in legitimate protests and calls for the release of teachers arrested in Tehran, Bushehr, Marivan, and other parts of the country in the past week. We condemn the arrest of four office-holders of CCITTA – Rasoul Bodaghi, Ja’far Ebrahimi, Mohammad Habibi, and Ali Akbar Baghani – who have been imprisoned and placed under pressure to denounce their colleagues and the teachers’ movement in defence of its fundamental rights and demands. We further call for the immediate release of teacher Esmail Abdi, now in his seventh year of imprisonment.

We support the CCITTA’s legitimate demands for trade union freedoms and workers’ rights as enshrined in national law and the constitution.

The right to protest, to form and join a trade union and to take collective action as trade unionists are fundamental human rights.

We call on the authorities in Iran to guarantee the rights of teachers and education workers to organise, and to freedom of association and freedom of speech including the right to peaceful assembly, without fear of intervention.

In solidarity,

Mary Bousted                                                                         Kevin Courtney

Joint General Secretary Joint General Secretary