Lack of Information About the Status of Jafar Ebrahimi, Imprisoned Teacher in Iran
Jafar Ebrahimi, a teachers’ union activist and member of the Tehran Teachers’ Professional Association, who has been in detention for nearly a month following his arrest during the forty-day memorial ceremony for those killed in the November protests at Sakineh Paradise in Karaj, remains in custody.
According to reports published on social media networks, there is no precise information available regarding the file of this teachers’ union activist, who was arrested on Thursday, December 26, following a raid by security forces on the fortieth-day memorial ceremony for Pouya Bakhtiari, who was killed in the November protests at Sakineh Paradise in Karaj.
The Teachers’ Justice Telegram channel also announced on Tuesday, October 23, by publishing a post, that security forces once again raided the home of this imprisoned teacher, and after searching his residence, confiscated and took away the mobile phone of Mr. Ebrahimi’s wife.
Previously, Hossein Taj, Jafar Ebrahimi’s defense lawyer, referring to this imprisoned teacher’s acute digestive illness, told ILNA news agency that his detention order had been extended once, while this lawyer, despite visiting branch 26 of the Revolutionary Prosecutor’s Office in Karaj and announcing representation of the case, was not permitted access to the file based on the annotation of Article 48 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
Last year, the Islamic Consultative Assembly approved the annotation of Article 48 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, through which only lawyers approved by the judiciary can defend parties in security-related cases, a matter which faced severe criticism from lawyers and legal experts.
This is not the first time that one of Iran’s teachers’ union activists has been arrested or sentenced to lengthy prison terms; Mohammad Habibi, Mahmoud Bahrami Langaroudi, Hojjat Emami, and Ismail Abdi are among the teachers’ union activists whom Voice of America has previously covered in its reports regarding the status of these imprisoned teachers.
Mohammad Habibi, along with 14 other participants in a gathering held on May 10, 2018, in front of the Budget and Planning Organization on the occasion of Teachers’ Week, was arrested and last year the sentence of 10 years and six months imprisonment and lashing for this teachers’ union activist and member of the board of directors of the Tehran Teachers’ Association was confirmed in the appeals court.
Hojjat Emami, a teachers’ union activist residing in Shahin Dez, was also arrested on Tuesday, January 8, when security forces raided the personal residence of this Azerbaijani (Turkic) activist.
On the other hand, according to reports published on social media networks, Mahmoud Bahrami Langaroudi, a teacher and spokesperson of the Tehran Teachers’ Professional Association, who was serving his five-year prison sentence in Evin Prison, was granted furlough on Tuesday, October 23, after four years.
This imprisoned teacher was first arrested in 2004 with the expansion of the teachers’ movement. He was arrested again on March 14, 2007, during a gathering of teachers in front of the parliament, and was sentenced to four years in prison by a court presided over by Judge Solavati. This teachers’ union activist was arrested for the third time in spring 2010 following a hunger strike in protest of the treatment of imprisoned union activists by security institutions, and was sentenced to five years in prison. In the summer of 2015, he was also arrested following widespread protests by teachers and was sentenced to five years in prison by a court presided over by Judge Moghisseh.
The treatment of protesting teachers and their arrests by security forces have repeatedly been met with protests from human rights and professional organizations.
The U.S. State Department has repeatedly and in various instances condemned violent and widespread suppression of protesters and also repeated and continuous violations of the rights of Iranian citizens, including workers’ rights activists and union activists, by the ruling regime of that country.
Source: Voice of America
