Four workers sentenced to lashes, jail for May Day events
Published: Monday, August 11, 2008
23:19GMT—7:19PM/EST
LABORERS – MAY DAY – SENTENCE
Washington, 10 August (IranVNC)—A court in the predominantly Kurdish city of Sanandaj in Western Iran yesterday convicted four labor activists of “disrupting public order” and sentenced them to lashes and prison for participating in May Day rallies.
According to a report by Kargozaran Newspaper and Iran’s Labor News Agency [ILNA], the court sentenced Soosan Razani and Shiva Kheir-Abadi to four months in jail and 15 lashes. Abdollah Khani was sentenced to 91 days in jail and 40 lashes while Seyyed Ghaleb Hosseini was sentenced to six months in prison and 50 lashes.
The accused have 20 days to appeal their sentences.
In a statement, the Union of Free Workers of Iran condemned the lashing sentences against the participants in the May Day events, calling them “an effort to establish a bare system of slavery and force the workers into submission by carrying out lashing sentences against them.”
The Sanandaj court had recently sentenced 11 other individuals to lashing and jail for participating in May Day ceremonies but following the objection of the accused and their defense attorney, an appeals court commuted the sentence to a fine.
Sources: Kargozaran Newspaper, Iran’s Labor News Agency
© IranVNC 2008. All rights reserved.
The original report was written in Persian.