Iranian Trade Unions, Civic Groups Set Out Demands For “Freedom, Equality”

Twenty independent Iranian trade unions, feminist groups and student organizations have issued a joint charter listing their "minimum demands,” including respecting freedom of expression, introducing gender and religious equality and abolishing capital punishment.

The signatories said that the Iranian people have taken to the streets across Iran over the past five months to protest “misogyny, gender discrimination, labor slavery, poverty, and national (ethnic) and religious oppression.”

The groups called for the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners, the cancellation of all death sentences and for ensuring “work safety and job security.”

They said that Iran should “normalize” its relations with all countries around the world, “ban the acquisition of nuclear weapons and strive for world peace.”

The signatories asked the whole Iranian nation, “from factories to universities, schools, and neighborhoods, to raise the flag of these minimum demands for freedom, equality, and liberation.”

Iran has been swept by protests since the September death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, in the custody of Tehran’s morality police.

The women-led demonstrations against the mandatory use of the headscarf and demands for equality has morphed into a widespread movement against mass poverty, mismanagement of the economy, corruption and state-sponsored violence.

The authorities have cracked down on the protest movement, which pose one of the most serious challenges to the theocracy installed by the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Activists say security forces have killed more than 520 people and detained over 19,000 in connection with the protests. Following unlawful detentions and biased trials, the judiciary has handed down stiff sentences, including the death penalty, to protesters.

The demonstrations and clampdown on dissent have been particularly intense in the country’s western Kurdish areas and Sistan and Baluchistan province, home to Iran’s beleaguered Sunni Baluch community.