Free Republic

Unions rally to free Iran's 'Lech Walesa' By Colin Freeman Sunday Telegraph 22/07/2007 Iran has sparked a storm of protest from trade unionists around the world after imprisoning a bus driver known as the Lech Walesa of the Islamic Republic. Mansour Osanloo, who leads a 17,000-strong bus workers' union, was abducted on the streets of Teheran on July 10 by an unidentified gang, thought to have been secret policemen. He had just returned from a trip to Europe, including Britain, where he met officials from the London-based International Transport Workers' Federation (ITWF) to discuss the government harassment his members were...

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL Public Statement 2 February 2006 IRAN: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL CALLS FOR RELEASE OF BUS WORKERS Amnesty International is calling on the Iranian authorities to release immediately hundreds of Tehran bus workers who were detained last week apparently to pre-empt threatened strike action. Although some of the workers have been released, hundreds are reported still to be detained without charge or trial at Tehran’s Evin Prison. The arrests began after the executive committee of the Union of Workers of the Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company, which represents workers employed by the United Bus Company of Tehran (Sharekat-e Vahed), called for...