Teachers’ Trade Association Issues Statement for Nationwide Hunger Strike Protest

The Coordinating Council of Iranian Education Workers and Teachers’ Trade Association has issued a statement to announce that a group of its members will go on hunger strike to protest the “illegal execution and imprisonment sentences” issued to a number of teachers.

The statement reads that the executive members of the Teachers’ Trade Association and a number of associated labour activists will start a hunger strike on May 2, 2010, which is National Teacher’s Day. It calls on all Iranian teachers to participate.

The Association calls for the “immediate and unconditional release” of all teachers from prison and a withdrawal of all legal and official actions against “critical educators.” The signatories call for better provisions for public schools through oil and gas revenues. They also request that partiality and political maneuvers be avoided when developing school curricula. They demand an end to the “security-tight atmosphere” in the Ministry of Education and job security for teachers.

The statement also calls for an end to the “promotion of spies” in schools and all forms of persecution for “critical” educators.”

The statement contends that teachers who join a demonstration or a gathering or represent their ideas on education or discuss publicly the difficulties they face in their profession are “persecuted beyond the law and their voices do not reach far.”

The letter refers to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s statement that describes Iran as the “freest country in the world” and questions heavy sentences like “execution, imprisonment, exile, forced retirement, demotion and suspension” issued to “caring and honest teachers of the country.”

The statement lists the names of imprisoned teachers including Badaghi, Khastar, Davari, and Momeni who have been sentenced to long prison terms that “have led to the “loss of livelihood for their families.” On the execution sentences issued to teachers Farzad Kamangar and Abdolreza Ghanbari, the Association states that the rulings are “not befitting for the Islamic Republic.”

Source: Radio Zamaneh