Labor Rights Activist Parveen Mohammadi Reports Return to Prison
Parveen Mohammadi, a labor rights activist, announced on her Instagram page that her furlough ended on Sunday, April 20, and that she is returning to prison.
Previously, the labor rights activist and vice president of the Free Union of Iranian Workers was sentenced to one year imprisonment on charges of “propaganda against the system,” a verdict that was upheld by Branch 6 of the Alborz Province Court of Appeals.
The labor rights activist also posted on her Instagram stories about the summoning of Nahid Khodajoo, a retired worker and member of the board of directors of the Free Union of Iranian Workers, to prison to serve a 6-year sentence.
Nahid Khodajoo was arrested on International Workers’ Day last year along with several other labor activists and journalists in front of Parliament. After 33 days in detention, she was released from Evin Prison on June 4, 2019, after posting bail pending the completion of legal proceedings.
Some prisoners were granted furloughs following the outbreak of coronavirus in Iran, but a large number of inmates in various Iranian prisons, including political and ideological prisoners with sentences longer than 5 years, continue to be held in Iranian prisons. Despite the spread of the coronavirus in Iranian prisons and the infection of some inmates, they are not granted short-term furloughs or conditional release.
The United States has repeatedly condemned Iran’s security crackdown on workers. The U.S. State Department stated in a message that the Islamic Republic regime could have paid workers’ rights in Iran with the expenses it has incurred in Syria.
Last February, Amnesty International in a report called 2018 “a year of shame” for the Islamic Republic and announced that more than seven thousand people, including protest participants, students, journalists, women’s rights activists, environmental activists, labor activists, and ethnic and religious minority rights activists, were arrested in Iran during that year.
Source: Voice of America
