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Referring to the month-long protest and strike by nurses and medical staff in government hospitals in different cities of Iran, the Iranian Human Rights Campaign wrote that the authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran have threatened and arrested several protesting nurses for ongoing human rights violations in line with their international obligations.
The human rights organization demands that the authorities of the Islamic Republic respect the rights of nurses and medical staff, an important pillar of society’s health, preserve the right to protest on their behalf and immediately stop the violent repression.
“For years, medical workers and nurses in Iran, mostly women, have been systematically exploited,” said Hadi Ghami, director of the Iran Campaign for Human Rights.
“Without freedom of association and the existence of independent trade unions, Iranian workers will face harsh retaliatory measures from the government simply for pursuing their rights,” Mr. Khami said.
He stressed that “the international community should not remain silent in the face of these protests and their repression” and that “the international community should hold the authorities of the Islamic Republic accountable for the clear violation of the right to peaceful protest and stand in solidarity with Iran’s medical workers.”
According to the Iranian Human Rights Movement website, assessments show that the current protests by nurses and medical staff in different cities are unprecedented in the nearly century since the establishment of the country’s health system.
The nurses’ protest and strike began on August 12 in Karaj, Alborz province, and has since spread to other cities and provincial centers. According to reports gathered by VOA, these protests have been held in more than 50 government hospitals in at least 21 cities in Iran.
The Iranian Human Rights Movement noted that nurses’ protest rallies in some cities were accompanied by clashes, clashes, and even arrests of several protesters, including the arrest of several protesting nurses and medical staff in Bushehr, Zahra Tamandan who was detained for three days in a Tehran hospital, and Poya Esfandiari who was arrested in Tehran’s Milad Hospital.
A participant in the nurses’ protest in Mashhad on August 27 told Iran’s Human Rights Movement: “Many nurses and medical staff gathered at the hospital (name of the hospital withheld) to protest. We were shouting slogans and suddenly some unidentified people in close-fitting clothes attacked the gathered people and violently dispersed the nurses.”
According to him, “The protesting nurses stood in front of the plainclothes troops to prevent the conflict from escalating. Finally, the hospital authorities came and told the nurses in a threatening tone that if you continue to protest and strike, they will fire all contract nurses and medical staff, and threatened that the fired nurses and medical staff will have nowhere to go. It will not be closed.”
According to the nurse who participated in the protest, “Most of the nurses and medical staff who participated in the protest and strike were young people, and there were fewer middle-aged and elderly nurses or medical staff among the protesters.”
He said, “Although the intensity of protests in major hospitals in the city has decreased and officials have dissuaded some nurses and medical staff from going on strike in protest with promises, everyone knows that if the crisis medical community of nurses and medical staff continues, these protests and strikes will resume.”
A nurse: Although the intensity of protests in major hospitals in the city has weakened, and officials have used promises to dissuade some nurses and medical staff from striking in protest, everyone knows that if the crisis among nurses and medical staff continues, protests and strikes will resume.
Recently, after days of silence, officials from the Ministry of Health promised to pay the demands of the protesting nurses, an amount exceeding 700 billion tomans.
In response, Health Minister Mohammad Reza Zafarkandi, who had previously promised to quickly pay the nurses’ demands, announced on Wednesday that the first part of the outstanding amount would be paid.
The Iranian Campaign for Human Rights, in its report on protests by nurses and medical staff at government hospitals and security clashes with them, noted:
Although Article 26 of the Islamic Republic Constitution mentions the freedom of “trade associations” as well as Islamic and religious associations; the fact is that over the past four decades, the Islamic Republic authorities have summoned, threatened, arrested, tried and sentenced labor and trade union activists to heavy prison terms for attempting to create “free” and “independent” organizations, unions and trade unions.
This comes against the backdrop, according to the report, of “Iran being one of the early members of the International Labour Organization and one of the signatories to the 1966 United Nations Convention or the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.”
Behnam Chainazadeh, a journalist and lawyer with the Iranian Human Rights Movement, told VOA that “the Islamic Republic has never recognized the right of workers to strike,” adding that the reality is that the right to strike is not mentioned in either the constitution or “Iran’s labor law or other laws and regulations.”
He added: “The Islamic Republic government deliberately refused to sign some of the main ILO conventions, such as Conventions 87 and 98, to keep the level of labor and trade union demands in Iran low.”
ILO Convention No. 87 on Freedom of Assembly and Trade Union Organisation and Convention No. 98 on the Right to Organise, Form Trade Unions and “Collective Bargaining” are two important documents of the International Labour Organization. “International Labour Organization”.
The movement stressed that “the Islamic Republic systematically and continuously suppresses the rights of workers and wage earners to strike and protest through trade unions. For example, the right to strike is not recognized in either the constitutional text or the labor law text of the Islamic Republic.
“While the Islamic Republic has an obligation to comply with domestic laws and international conventions to protect workers’ rights, it has repeatedly violated these obligations in practice,” Hadi Qami said.
He stressed that “this ruthless repression is the result of decades of impunity and the failure of the international community to hold the Islamic Republic accountable for widespread human rights violations.”
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