Open letter to the International Labour Organisation:
The Islamic regime of Iran should be expelled from the ILO and the international community
Mr Guy Ryder
Director-General
International Labour Organisation
Geneva, Switzerland
20 November 2020
Dear Mr Ryder
I am writing to you as the Leader of the Worker-communist Party of Iran (WPI) in connection with the demand of the people of Iran for a political boycott of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the expulsion of this barbaric, anti-human regime from the International Labour organisation (ILO). You are certainly aware of the anti-labour, anti-human and discriminatory actions and policies of Iran’s Islamic regime that breach all international standards and civilised norms. I’m sure you are aware that this government systematically violates the basic rights of workers, the youth, women and all sections of the population. A small part of this regime’s atrocities was documented in a report by Amnesty International entitled “Iran: Trampling Humanity – mass arrests, disappearances and torture since Iran’s November 2019 protests”, published in September 2020. A particularly horrendous action of this regime in recent months, and which shocked the world, was the execution of protester and champion wrestler Navid Afkari, despite worldwide protests for a stay of execution and his release.
In Iran not a day goes by that a number of people are not executed; not a day goes by that barbaric sentences of imprisonment, execution or even flogging are not handed down to activists protesting against the unbearable poverty and oppression that prevails in Iran. The examples are shocking. At the height of Covid-19, thousands of prisoners are being held in inhumane conditions in the regime’s prisons. Prominent workers’, teachers’ and women’s rights activists, such as Mr Jafar Azimzadeh, President of the Free Union of Iranian Workers, Mr Esmail Abdi, a member of the Executive Board of the Teachers’ Association, Ms Atena Daemi, a children’s and human rights activist, and Ms Saba Kord Afshari, a women’s rights activist sentenced to 24 years in prison for protesting against compulsory hijab, are just a few names of activists who have been sentenced to long prison terms and are currently in jail.
The expulsion of the Islamic regime of Iran from the International Labour Organisation is important to counter the repressive policies of that government. The dismissal of the regime from the ILO, and its political boycott generally, would send a clear message to the leaders, judges and policy makers of that regime that the international community is watching them and will hold them accountable. In contrast, any degree of appeasement of such a killer regime is equivalent to an increase in the number of executions, arrests and other atrocities by that government.
The negligence of the international institutions and their indifference towards the crimes of the Islamic regime of Iran is unforgivable in the eyes of the Iranian people and will not be forgotten. This lack of action is despite the fact that a number of trade unions around the world have called for a political boycott of the Islamic Republic and its expulsion from the ILO. The Islamic regime of Iran is not the representative, but the killer of the people of Iran. Just as the regime of racial apartheid in South Africa was boycotted and thrown out of international institutions, so Iran’s regime of gender apartheid and perpetrator of horrendous crimes against humanity should be thrown out of international bodies and politically isolated and boycotted.
I trust you would pay due attention to this demand of the Iranian people and not remain silent in the face of the inhuman actions of the Islamic regime of Iran.
Yours sincerely
Hamid Taqvaee
Secretary of the Central Committee of the Worker-communist Party of Iran (WPI)
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