November 10, 2017
Security agents whisked a labor activist off to jail Saturday, grabbing him while he was in the middle of kidney dialysis.
Mahmud Salehi was taken from a hospital in Saqqez, Kurdistan Province.
His son, Samerand Salehi, informed the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) that his father was detained to begin serving a one-year prison sentence issued by an Appeals Court last February. His crime is “propaganda against the state.”
“You can imagine what state my father is in because he was taken from the hospital straight to prison,” said Samerand Salehi. “We are very worried for him because he needs his pills and has to get special treatment in the hospital twice a week, including dialysis.”
“He lost his kidneys the last time he was detained,” he added. “Now we’re worried about his life.”
In 2015, the Revolutionary Court in Sanandaj sentenced Salehi to nine years for “propaganda against the state” and “creating an opposition group.”
A 45-year-old baker based in Saqqez, Mahmud Salehi is one of the founders of the Labor Unions Coordination Committee, and has been arrested numerous times for his labor activities, his son told CHRI.
Agents of the Intelligence Ministry arrested him in April 2015 ahead of International Labor Day, May 1. A month later, he was hospitalized for serious urinary complications and eventually both of his kidneys were removed.
Salehi wrote an open letter to the UN special rapporteur on the human rights in which he said, “I was taken to the Intelligence Ministry’s notorious detention center [in Sanandaj] along with [labor activist] Osman Esmaili, who was arrested the same day. I lost both of my kidneys there because the prison authorities cut off my medications. Now I receive dialysis treatment every Saturday and Tuesday at the Imam Khomeini Hospital in Saqqez.”
The trade unionist continued: “I declare to all freedom-seeking people and international organizations that I am prepared to face any judicial authority in front of a jury in an open court to show my people and the whole world that workers are being suppressed for no crime other than seeking to organize independent unions.”
In July and August 2016, his wife, Najibeh Salehzadeh, was also tried by the Revolutionary Court in Saqqez for allegedly posting “insulting” material on Facebook. A verdict has not been issued.
In Iran, independent labor unions are not allowed, strikers are often fired and risk arrest and labor leaders are consis-tently prosecuted under catchall national security charges.