Letters Page

Editors: On April 9th 2007, a commanding officer of the Saqez security forces
appeared at Mahmoud Salehi’s work and asked him to attend at the office of the
prosecutor to negotiate with the governor and the prosecutor about this year’s
celebration of the international workers’ day, which was being organized by Salehi
and his colleagues. However, in the prosecutor’s office, Salehi, the former President
of the Bakery Workers’ Association of the City of Saqez and a well-known labour
activist in Iran, was told that the Kurdistan Appeal Court has reached the final
verdict on his May Day 2004 case and that he has been sentenced to one year
imprisonment and a three year suspended prison sentence. They immediately
put Salehi under arrest. Salehi objected to the deceitful and illegal way in which
his arrest took place and refused to sign the order. After that Salehi was taken
immediately to the Sanandaj Central Prison. This way, the government authorities
did not allow Salehi to contact his family, lawyer and colleagues, and he was not
even allowed to take his medications with him. Salehi has major kidney problems,
as one of his kidneys has stopped working and the other one is almost failing and
without medications and continuous treatment his life would be endangered. Thus
far, the verdict of the appeal court has not been handed down to Salehi’s lawyers.

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