IWAC – Follow-up report on Anisha Assadollahi, language instructor, the translator of the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus, labor activist, and translator of many articles; she has been subpoenaed to attend a court hearing in the 26th division of Tehran Revolutionary Court chaired by Judge Afshari, scheduled to be held on Apr. 16, 2023. She was arrested at her own house along with her husband, Keyvan Mohtadi, himself an author, translator and labor activist, on May. 9, 2022. Anisha Assadollahi was temporarily released after more than three months of solitary confinement at ward 209, and on a very unusually heavy bail on Aug. 20, 2022. Her husband, Keyvan Mohtadi, has spent all his days in prison since that date when he posted a video on his Instagram account showing security agents lining up at the other side of the street in front of their building, shouting “they’re here to arrest us!” to this date, 4/13/2023. That afternoon, security agents raided the couple’s house and took them both to the obscure chambers of the ministry of intelligence. And, of course, the couple both had prior prison experience, with the excuse of participating in labor demonstrations out of solidarity. Their latest arrest, however, was related to a meeting between some labor activists from of the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus and two French syndicalist. This is while, based on the regime’s international commitments, including the agreements of ILO, such a meeting should be entirely allowed and not susceptible to any criminalization. Later, Keyvan Mohtadi was put to trial and charged with “propaganda against the regime” exemplified by having published parts of his writings and translations on his own Instagram account and sentenced to six years of imprisonment, which was reaffirmed verbatim by the Court of Appeals, and as said by Anisha Assadollahi, he was not even included in any pardon or sentence reduction in the course of what came to be known as the judiciary public pardon of former political prisoners and Zhina (Mahsa) Movement arrestees. What was done to this couple, simply for advocating workers and teachers’ rights, signifies that the regime is adamant to turn workers and teachers ever more hapless and, in the absence their supporters, violate their rights ever more aggressively. The miserable increase of the minimum wage in 2023, which given the rate of inflation in Iran, is way below all expectations is far from sufficient to cover most basic livelihood, and thus nothing but a clear evidence of the catastrophic situation of workers and their advocates in Iran. It must be added that Anisha’s brother, Ali Assadollahi, poet, translator, and Iranian Writers Association’s secretary, was arrested in his own living place by the security forces on Nov. 21, 2022, and was later released on Feb. 28, 2023.
