CUPE Ontario has added its voice to the growing chorus of condemnation around the executions in Iran of two young people who were involved with the nationwide protests triggered by the death in custody of Jina Mahsa Amini.
CUPE Ontario expressed its profound shock and condemnation at the deaths of Majidreza Rahnavard and Mohsen Shekari, protesters who were executed following sham and unfair trials.
According to allies in the Iranian labour movement, since the protests began less than three months ago, thousands have been arrested and indicted and about 500 have been killed, including 60 children.
With some 30 people presently at risk of execution in connection with the protests, and potentially many more young people facing the same sentence, CUPE Ontario called on the government of Iran to stay immediately all executions related to the current protests.
Farid Partovi, Chair of CUPE Ontario’s International Solidarity Committee, said: “The news of executions, as well as a number of arrested dying due to torture, is so profoundly retraumatizing, painful, and enraging for our people in Iran and for all of us. The violence and terror against protestors is absolutely outrageous and must cease immediately, along with any other execution sentences against political prisoners, members of ethnic peoples, and oppressed groups across the country. We oppose the death penalty and believe it should be abolished everywhere in the world.”
Nastaran Yadollahi, CUPE Ontario Executive Board member, said: “People exercising their human rights and protesting to gain self-determination should not be punished by death or imprisonment. The prison system is a patriarchal, capitalist system designed to silence and control the marginalized, the poor and those who dare to speak up against injustices imposed and exercised by the state and all of its apparatuses. These archaic systems of punishment must be abolished everywhere.”
CUPE Ontario President Fred Hahn said: “We will always stand in solidarity with the labour movement and people of Iran as they exercise their right to peaceful protest and freedom of association and expression. We call on the government of Iran to respect their right to express themselves freely, without fear of such terrible reprisals.”
