Taking COSATU Today Forward, 6 May 2026
Norman Mampane
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COSATU TODAY COSATU Call Center Contacts: 010 002 2590 #COSATU at #NHI ConCourt to support the campaign in defense of the universal healthcare system #ClassSolidarity#ClassWar #Cosatu40 #SACTU70 #ClassStruggle “Build Working Class Unity for Economic Liberation towards Socialism” #Back2Basics #JoinCOSATUNow #ClassConsciousness |
Taking COSATU Today Forward
‘Whoever sides with the revolutionary people in deed as well as in word is a revolutionary in the full sense’-Maoo
Our side of the story
6 May 2026
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Contents
- Workers Parliament: Back to Basics!
- Minister Leon Schreiber invites public comment on draft Digital Identity regulations
- South Africa
- COSATU North-West stands in solidarity with its affiliate – The National Union of Mineworkers in condemning Impala Triple M for undermining organisational rights and the rule of law
- SACP Western Cape Post Provincial Council Statement
- International-Workers’ Solidarity!
- Solidarity with the people of Iran
Workers’ Parliament-Back2Basics
Minister Leon Schreiber invites public comment on draft Digital Identity regulations
05 May 2026
The Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Leon Schreiber, has gazetted draft amended regulations in terms of the Identification Act of 1997 for public comment until 6 June 2026. The draft regulations are designed to create the required regulatory framework for the introduction of a cutting-edge Digital Identity system in South Africa.
The draft regulations propose the creation of secure Digital Identity credentials that will co-exist alongside the Department’s physical products. This will enable citizens to store, access and utilise secure digital versions of their identity document, birth certificate, marriage certificate and other Home Affairs products directly on their smartphone, and introduce the ability for users to remotely confirm their identity using biometric verification. Use of the Digital Identity system will be optional, and physical products like Smart ID cards will continue to exist in parallel to this new digital system.
The draft amendments are intended to:
Clarify the status of Digital Identity credentials as an additional form of valid identity under the Act, without affecting the continued validity of physical identity cards;
Prescribe standards for enrolment, biometric capture and identity assurance for Digital Identity credentials;
Lay the foundation for interoperability with both the public and private sectors, including to enable the delivery of government services in digital format;
Tighten safeguards for how identity information may be shared with accredited institutions, with access strictly regulated under the Identification Act of 1997, the Promotion of Access to Information Act of 2000, and the Protection of Personal Information Act of 2013; and
Strengthen the population register as the single authoritative record of identity and civic status information.
Minister Schreiber said: “The draft regulations propose the creation of a world-class Digital Identity system as the ultimate expression of our vision to leverage digital transformation to deliver Home Affairs @ home. This system can greatly enhance our ability to combat identity theft, financial crimes, corruption and illegal immigration, while delivering efficient services to citizens in the comfort of their own homes and improving privacy protections and data management.”
Minister Schreiber added: “We are already working closely with a number of partners in government, including the Presidency, to ensure that the foundational system we are building supports the Digital Transformation Roadmap’s goal of digitalising government services. Technical work is well underway, and the finalisation of these regulations will enable us to complete our digital service delivery revolution by bringing services right onto your smart device.”
Members of the public, civil society organisations, industry and other stakeholders are invited to review the draft regulations and submit written comments by 6 June 2026, before the regulations are finalised for promulgation. The gazette is available here.
Submissions should be addressed to the Chief Director: Legal Services and be forwarded to the Department in any of the following ways:
By hand to the Department at 10th Floor, Hallmark Building, 230 Johannes Ramokhoase Street, Pretoria, 0001;
By post to the Department at Private Bag X114, Pretoria, 0001; or
By e-mail to Moses.M...@dha.gov.za
Media
enquiries:
Carli
van Wyk – Spokesperson to the Minister
Cell: 079 166 3899
Issued by Department of Home Affairs
South Africa #ClassSolidarity
COSATU North-West stands in solidarity with its affiliate – The National Union of Mineworkers in condemning Impala Triple M for undermining organisational rights and the rule of law
Kabelo Kgoro, COSATU North-West Provincial Secretary, 6 May 2026
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) in the North-West Province stands in solidarity with its affiliate, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) in condemning Impala Triple M for its undermining of organisational rights and the rule of law.
South Africa has a labour relations act which was enacted to change the law governing labour relations in the country. Its (LRA) primary objectives, inter-alia, are to regulate trade unions by providing for the organisational rights of trade unions that ensures that employees can join and participate in union activities without discrimination.
It also provides simple procedures for resolving labour disputes through statutory conciliation, mediation, and arbitration; thus, it established the CCMA.
In this case, the NUM has legally satisfied the requirements of the LRA in terms of seeking organisational rights and should be conferred with the necessary rights as contained in the Act. However, Impala Triple M, in its quest to defend the rights of a rival union, are doing everything in their power to frustrate the NUM and refuse it what legally belongs to it.
The CCMA did provide a verification report that confirmed that the NUM exceeded the required 40% threshold as per an existing collective agreement. What the CCMA should have done now is to enforce compliance from the employer’ side.
As COSATU in the North-West province we are appalled that the indecisiveness of the CCMA happens a day before we celebrated the International Workers’ Day, best known as May Day, on the 01st of May. This came as a real slap on the face of workers and a failure of the CCMA to give defend the rule of law and gave courage an unscrupulous employer such as Impala Triple M that they can continue to undermine the rule of law.
COSATU has always maintained that there are employers who are held bent on attacking collective bargaining and undermine labour legislation. The attitude of Impala Triple M towards the NUM in the matter involving organisational rights vindicates us.
We call on Impala Triple M to desist from your tricks informed by your contemptuousness for the labour laws of our country and your deep resolve to divide workers based on their constitutionally enshrined right of freedom of association.
We equally call on all our affiliates, our alliance partners in the province and progressive civil society organisations to join us in rallying behind the plight of the NUM and force Impala Triple M to respect our hard won labour rights as we send a clear message to other unscrupulous employers out there that we will not tolerate them to trample on our hard fought for and constitutionally enshrined rights.
Now is the time to unite and defend our rights as workers and the working class.
To the workers and members of the NUM at Impala Triple M and workers in the platinum belt, the mining sector, as well as other economic sectors, know that you are not alone.
Your Federation is there as your shield!
Issued by COSATU North West
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SACP Western Cape Post Provincial Council Statement
Benson Ngqentsu, SACP Western Cape Provincial Secretary, 3 May 2026
The most resolute section of the working class, the communist militants of the vanguard party, representing South African Communist Party (SACP) structures from across the length and breadth of the Western Cape, held a Provincial Council at Vuzamanzi Primary School in Site C, Khayelitsha, in Cape Town, on 2 May 2026. The Provincial Council brought together delegates from our branches, districts, the provincial executive and representatives from the Young Communist League. The Provincial Council was held under the theme, ‘Defending the independence of the South African Communist Party: Upholding revolutionary discipline and advancing working-class representation’.
The Council met a day after workers around the world celebrated the historic International Workers’ Day, which was held in Paarl on 1 May 2026. Delegates re-affirmed the Central Committee’s resounding call to workers that the “working class must rise with clarity, discipline and unity”.
The Council received and considered the political report (inclusive of global and domestic analysis), organisational status, assessment of by-elections and the roadmap towards our 10th Provincial Congress in August 2026, as well as readiness for the 2026 local government elections.
Message of solidarity from our principal working-class ally, Cosatu
The Council welcomed a resounding message of support from the Provincial Secretary of Cosatu in the Western Cape, Comrade Malvern De Bruyn. The essence of Cosatu’s message reflected the necessity of maintaining strategic unity of the Alliance in the context of the simmering tensions between the ANC and SACP as well as divisions in the civic movement. Emphasis was made that no component of the Alliance must dictate decisions of another because this Alliance is constituted by independent formations, but this Alliance is indispensable in pursuance of the National Democratic Revolution.
The Provincial Secretary further lamented the mooted devolution of the metrorail in Cape Town into the hands of the neoliberal Democratic Alliance. This move will embolden the DA but will be catastrophic for the working class and commuters in general who rely on trains for public transport.
On the global geo-strategic developments
The international and local socio-economic and political contexts reveal the terminal combustion of the neoliberal capitalist order, which is now rapidly evolving into a barbaric
predatory stage of capitalist accumulation.
A spectre of fascistic barbarism is haunting humanity as the power of the unipolar overlords is waning while a new world struggles to be born. It is the time of monsters! These monsters on a global scale are represented by the jingoist behaviour of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu.
These jingoists embarked on an illegal foreign war of aggression and regime change agenda through the assassination of leaders and scientists under the pretext of destroying the nuclear capability of the Republic of Iran. Their machinations deserve full and total condemnation. In addition, the Israeli aggression against its neighbours and illegal occupation or seizure of land in Palestine, Lebanon, and other countries must be stopped.
The illegal economic blockade against Cuba, the abduction of President Maduro and threats against Greenland, Canada and other sovereign countries are gross violations of international law. However, the imminent implosion of NATO is welcome and must be accelerated to dismantle the military domination by the military alliance.
On the domestic political conjuncture
We are confronted with a deepening neoliberal offensive against the working class manifested in budget cuts; the so-called structural reforms – Operation Vulindlela involving privatisation of our ports, rail, energy, and telecommunication; inequality; and the erosion of social gains.
The working class in South Africa and in the Western Cape in particular is facing an intensified and coordinated offensive. The neoliberal agenda, driven by global capitalist interests and reproduced through domestic policy choices, continues to deepen inequality, entrench unemployment, and widen poverty. This offensive is not abstract; it is lived daily in the struggles of workers, the unemployed, and the youth.
Key sectors of the provincial economy – agriculture, construction, retail, manufacturing, and finance – are increasingly structured in ways that reproduce exploitation and misery. This is most evident in the growing precarity of work: casualisation, labour broking, insecure contracts, and the erosion of hard-won labour protections.
Disastrous effects of this catastrophe manifest in a chronic crisis of underdevelopment where working-class townships are characterised by rising unemployment, poverty, inequality, violent crime, and gangsterism alongside expanding informal squatter camps, pothole-riddled roads, and inadequate access to land, housing, affordable sanitation, electricity, and water coupled with escalating property rates.
The Competition Commission, in its 2025 cost of living report, confirmed the severity of this crisis, highlighting the escalating cost of living crisis and its devastating impact on working-class households. Rising prices of essential goods and services such as food, fuel, and electricity have eroded purchasing power, increased food insecurity, and forced households into impossible trade-offs between basic needs.
The ongoing energy crisis continues to drive electricity tariffs upward, disproportionately affecting low-income households. At the same time, transport and energy costs consume an unsustainable share of household income, while rising interest rates further burden indebted families. Wages, meanwhile, have failed to keep pace.
The situation is compounded by regressive local policies in Cape Town. For instance, the introduction of fixed tariffs for water, sanitation, and cleaning services based on property value rather than consumption constituted a direct attack on working-class households. The subsequent court ruling of Thursday 29 April 2026 declaring these tariffs unlawful underscores the need for ongoing vigilance by communities. The Party welcomes and is vindicated by this judgment, as it confirms our long-held view that the City of Cape Town is deliberately suffocating the working class through these irregular fixed charges.
In the Western Cape, poverty remains deeply racialised, gendered, and spatially entrenched. Working-class communities continue to endure underdevelopment, chronic service delivery failures, and high levels of crime. As the winter season approaches, many will again face displacement due to fires and flooding disasters that have become predictable yet remain inadequately addressed.
Public services are under severe strain. The education system continues to fail in placing learners in schools, undermining their prospects of a life of dignity. Healthcare facilities remain overstretched and under-resourced, unable to meet the needs of working-class communities. These failures exacerbate broader social crises, including crime, gender-based violence, gangsterism, substance abuse and the tyranny of extortionist syndicates.
Further, despite the deployment of the army to support the police in key areas of Cape Town, the surge in violent crime continues to stubbornly undermine these interventions. This reality highlights a critical limitation that the fight against crime cannot be reduced to a security response based solely on boots on the ground. It requires a comprehensive approach that addresses the underlying social and economic conditions such as poverty, unemployment, inequality, and social dislocation that sustain criminality.
The SACP decision to contest 2026 LGE and the reactionary response
The Party’s electoral performance in the by-election in Ward 104 in Du Noon requires a deeper and more systematic analysis. Preliminary reflections confirm the correctness of the decision to contest. The Ward presented a clear vacuum of political leadership, creating space for the SACP to intervene and assert a working-class alternative.
The historic decision of the SACP to contest the 2026 local government elections has laid bare deepening ideological faultlines within the movement. What has emerged with renewed intensity is not merely disagreement but a coordinated resurgence of anti-communism, an old weapon now sharpened and deployed to isolate, delegitimise, and weaken the revolutionary voice of the Party. We refuse to be coerced and intimidated.
The Provincial Council reaffirms the directive of the Central Committee contained in the recent circular to remain resolute on reconfiguring the Alliance and maintaining dual membership despite the ANC’s ultimatum to communists. In fact, we boldly and resolutely reject the reactionary ultimatum of the ANC NEC.
Those elements that seek to institute a communist purge in the ANC will do well to remember that in the mid-1920s there was a giant trade union known as the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) led by Clements Kadalie. It was built and anchored by committed communist cadres such as James La Guma, John Gomas and E.J. Khaile to mention a few. However, around 1926 Kadalie forced a split with the communists through passing a resolution to exclude Party members from holding office in the ICU. Party members, including founding leaders like E.J. Khaile, were expelled from the ICU for refusing to resign from the Communist Party of South Africa. The consequence of purging communists led to the ultimate demise of the ICU within a matter of a few years.
We also recall another historical antecedent of a coordinated anti-communist tendency that was experienced by the ANC in the early 1930s. A pro-communist President, Josiah Gumede, stood for re-election at an ANC conference in 1930, and the right-wing conservative element collaborated to remove Gumede and replaced him with Dr Seme, who was advanced in years. As a consequence of that conservatism, the ANC became moribund and almost collapsed.
Lastly, the history of the Suppression of Communism Act of 1950 and its failure to kill the fire and fervour of communist ideology is well known. The message echoes loudly across the landscape: you cannot kill nor suppress the indomitable spirit and intellectual force of communist conviction. We will not succumb to the undisguised suppression of communism by the ANC NEC.
Nevertheless, as long as there are classes, there will be class struggle. We communists did not invent the class struggle, but we struggle to give it direction and political content. Naturally, as the SACP, we are preoccupied by the theory and practice of transformation from capitalism to socialism.
Socialism and democracy are inseparable, and a new society can only be built by the revolutionary action and engagement of the workers and popular masses, never without their engagement and much less against their will.
Forward to the 10th SACP Western Cape Provincial Congress
The road to the 10th Provincial Congress must be defined by heightened political activism across all levels of the organisation in the province. This activism must not be confined to the cadreship alone but must actively draw in the broader grassroots base of our Party. The Congress must be built from below: through the energy, participation, and mobilisation of the rank and file.
Central to this process is the strengthening of political and ideological education, alongside consistent mass work campaign tasks. These must become the defining feature of Party structures and cadreship throughout the province. A politically grounded and ideologically clear membership is essential if we are to confront the challenges facing the working class and advance a coherent programme of transformation.
Importantly, these tasks must be pursued with revolutionary discipline, coordination, and a clear political message. Every structure, every cadre, and every activist must understand their role in building momentum toward both the 10th Provincial Congress and the 4 November 2026 local government elections.
We pursue the local and international struggles inspired by Mao Zedong: “The socialist system will eventually replace the capitalist system; this is an objective law independent of man’s will. However, much as the reactionaries try to hold back the wheel of history, eventually revolution will take place and will inevitably triumph.”
Issued by SACP Western Cape
International-Solidarity
Solidarity with the people of Iran
Democracy Solidarity in emergencies, 4 May 2026
As the people of Iran continue to suffer repression at the hands of the regime and the devastation caused by an unjust war, Iranian teachers and trade unionists are calling for international solidarity.
Follow the latest from Iran's education trade union community below!
2 May | Message from our Iranian members on their National Teachers' Day
Dear Comrades,
This year’s Teachers’ Day in Iran arrives in the aftermath of one of the most painful and repressive periods the country’s educational community has endured. It has been a year marked by killings, arrests, systematic repression, and profound loss. We have lost colleagues and students—some killed during popular protests by state forces, and others who lost their lives in the shadow of war and the interventions of foreign powers. Their places in classrooms now remain permanently empty.
Many teachers, instead of standing before blackboards, have faced summons, interrogations, imprisonment, and relentless security pressures. Students who should have been learning in safety have lost their lives both in street crackdowns and under the shadow of war and missile attacks. Among these tragedies is the devastating incident at Minab Primary School, following U.S. military strikes, which once again exposed how children’s lives and futures are sacrificed in struggles for power.
Teacherless classrooms, empty chairs, abandoned schoolbags, and unmarked graves stand as living evidence of violence inflicted upon a generation whose right to live and to learn has been simultaneously targeted. Among these losses, teachers, too, have been killed.
As part of this ongoing repression, a number of teacher trade union activists remain imprisoned without any clear information about their condition. Among them are Reza Amanifar, Inspector of the Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations (CCITTA) and a board member of the Teachers’ Trade Association in Bushehr, and Asghar Hajeb, a trade union activist and board member of the Bushehr Teachers’ Association. They, along with several other teachers, remain in prison, and serious concerns persist regarding their situation.
At the same time, education has long been shifting from a universal public right into a class-based privilege, and the tragedies of the past year have intensified this destructive trajectory. Yet, despite this immense suffering, education endures. Classrooms—though increasingly empty—and schools—though more brutally stratified—continue to breathe through hope and resistance. The voices of teachers have not been silenced; they continue to resonate in defense of human dignity and justice, insisting on the right to free, equal, and humane education.
The Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations honors Teachers’ Day and extends its greetings to all courageous teachers—those who, in the heart of darkness, keep the light of knowledge, equality, and liberation alive. As we pass through one of the darkest periods in our recent history, and as hope for the future is under relentless attack, the responsibility of true educators is to sustain belief in free and just futures. Teachers’ Day is a moment to renew this commitment—to defend those futures and to struggle to achieve them.
Call for International Solidarity
We call on education unions, international organizations, labor movements, and all defenders of education as a public good across the world to stand in solidarity with teachers and students in Iran. Silence in the face of repression only enables its continuation.
We urge active support for the demands of Iranian teachers, including the immediate and unconditional release of Reza Amanifar, Asghar Hajeb, and all imprisoned educators, an end to the securitization of education, and the guarantee of free, equal, and quality education for all.
Global solidarity is a necessity in defending education as a fundamental human right. Our struggle for educational justice is part of a broader global struggle for freedom, equality, and human dignity.
In solidarity,
Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations (CCITTA)
13 April | Global Unions call for a permanent and sustainable ceasefire in the Middle East
Global Unions released a statement calling for a permanent and sustainable ceasefire across the Middle East and an immediate end to the relentless cycle of war and militarism that continues to exact a devastating toll on civilians, workers, and entire communities.
2 April | EI members raise their voices in solidarity with teachers and students devastated by the war in the Middle East
Education International (EI) brought together education unionists from across the globe for a solidarity webinar with member organisations impacted by the war in the Middle East. During the online gathering, which featured teachers and unionists directly impacted by the war, EI members reiterated a call for an immediate ceasefire, the protection of school communities and a commitment to peace in the region.
1 March | Statement: EI condemns military strikes on Iran and attacks on schools
Education International (EI) unequivocally condemned the recent United States and Israeli military strikes on Iran, including the bombing of the Shajare Tayyiba elementary school for girls in the southern Iranian town of Minab that killed at least 150 people, mainly schoolchildren and teachers, and injured around 100 others.
EI echoed the urgent call from its affiliate, the Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers Trade Associations (CCITTA), for the immediate cessation of all actions that place civilians at risk, and for the unwavering protection of schools as safe spaces for learning.
Read the full statement here.
1 March | Teacher union leader released on bail
Khan Aziz Esmaili, a member of the executive board of the Teachers’ Trade Association of Islamabad-Gharb and also a member of the CCITTA, has been released on bail.
23 February | New arrests of teacher trade unionists
Mohammad Sedighi-Pour, a member of the Gilan Teachers’ Trade Association, was arrested on February 18. Security forces raided his workplace and detained him before transferring him to an unknown location. Since then, no information about his whereabouts or condition has been provided.
Khan Aziz Esmaili, a member of the executive board of the Teachers’ Trade Association of Islamabad-Gharb and also a member of the CCITTA, was arrested on February 23. Security forces raided his home, detained him, and transferred him to an undisclosed location. During the raid, the mobile phones of his family members were also confiscated.
17 February | National School Strike and International Digital Action on X (formerly Twitter) for Killed Students and Teachers
The Coordinating Council of Iranian Teacher Trade Associations (CCITTA) has issued two urgent calls following the killing of more than 230 children and adolescents, alongside teachers, during the recent wave of repression in Iran. These figures are based on independently verified cases collected under highly restrictive conditions and therefore represent the minimum number confirmed.
On February 18th, 2026, CCITTA calls for a National Day of Mourning and School Strike in Iran. It urges teachers not to go to schools and administrative offices and parents to keep their children home in solidarity and for protection. Communities are urged to participate in memorial gatherings for the killed.
This action affirms a fundamental principle: the rights to life and to safe education are non-negotiable.
On the international level, EI supports CCITTA’s call for a coordinated digital campaign on X (formerly Twitter) on February 19th, 2026, at 18:30 Central European Time (CET); 12:30 PM Eastern Time (ET).
Teachers’ unions and education federations worldwide are urged to:
Amplify the digital campaign through official platforms.
Increase the safety of Iranian students and educators within international education and labor forums.
Call for accountability and protection of children’s rights to life and to safe schooling.
Hashtags to be used are: #Empty_Desks and #Classes_Without_Teachers
The education union stated: “Defending schools means defending the future. Silence enables normalization. Solidarity creates protection.”
With CCITTA, Education International (EI) reiterates that: “Each child killed leaves behind an empty desk. Each empty desk is a life interrupted and a future denied. Schools must be places of safety. When students and educators are targeted, the foundation of education itself is under threat.”
Project Empty Desks: "We refuse to let their memories be buried."
The Coordinating Council of Iranian Teacher Trade Associations (CCITTA) has now documented the name of over 200 students killed during the brutal crackdown in Iran.
The education union denounced the continued pressure from the authorities on the mourning families to remain silent, stating: "We refuse to let their memories be buried. These desks remain empty as silent witnesses to a generation denied the right to grow up."
The CCITTA called on the international community to investigate the violent killings of children and civilians and to hold those responsible to account.
Project Empty Desks : "Nowhere in the world is the answer to a student's 'slogan' a bullet."
Mohammad Habibi, the spokesperson for the Coordinating Council of Iranian Teacher Trade Associations (CCITTA), has announced that the number of students killed in recent protests has surpassed "160 individuals."
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), he wrote: "This number means that, so far, at least five full classrooms have been massacred. Nowhere in the world is the answer to a student's 'slogan' a bullet."
Under a project titled "Empty Desks," the spokesperson has published the names of 150 students as of February 3rd who were killed during the violent crackdown by Islamic Republic authorities in January.
The Council states that it has published the names and images of these children based on reports from reliable networks and credible sources, and continues to update the list as more information becomes available.
Education International joins call to the UN Human Rights Council on Iran
In January, EI joined 63 other civil society organisations in urging the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) to convene a special session on the atrocities committed against protesters in Iran.
The joint call also asks the HRC to renew the mandates of both the Fact-Finding Mission on Iran (FFMI) and the Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, and to instruct the FFMI to produce a full investigative report.
EI and its Iranian affiliate CCITTA have already provided extensive documentation to the FFMI on the teacher and student casualties of 8 and 9 January 2026.
At least 152 children and nine teachers killed
The widespread internet shutdowns and communication blackouts make it impossible to fully document the mass killing of civilians that happened in Iran on 8 and 9 January. It is however confirmed that at least 152 children and nine teachers, including two female teachers, lost their lives.
Hundreds of children and at least thirteen teacher union activists are still detained, including Abdullah Rezaei, CCITTA board member and general secretary of the Teachers’ Trade Association of Harsin, in Kermanshah Province. Arrested teacher unionists are being subjected to torture, forced confessions, and trials without access to legal counsel.
30 January | Update on the crackdown on teacher unionists
The CCITTA shared an updated list of teacher unionists and activists arrested or killed during the violent crackdown.
Teachers and education activists who have lost their lives:
Alireza Ansari-Far – Teacher from Marlik
Amir Sattari Rad – Teacher
Bahram Akhlaghi – Teacher
Fatemeh Poursadeghi – Female teacher
Kamran Akbari – Teacher from Eslamabad-e Gharb
Karamali Alaei – Retired teacher from Khomeini Shahr
Mandana Golestani Nejad – Female teacher
Parsa Abbaspour – Student teacher, Farhangian University
Reza Karimi-Far – Retired teacher from Chalus
Teachers and education activists arrested:
Abdollah Rezaei – CCITTA board member and the general secretary of the Teachers’ Trade Association of Harsin – Arrested on 8 January
Hossein Ramazanpour – Teacher activist, North Khorasan – Arrested on 9 January
Reza Moslemi – Teacher activist, Hamedan – Arrested on 9 January
Ahmad Alizadeh – Teacher activist, Abdanan, Ilam – Arrested on 28 January
Arman Shapouri – Teacher, Izeh – Arrested on 1 January
Shervin Hamideh – Teacher, Karaj – Arrested on 2 January
Jalil Shirdel – Retired teacher, Babol – Arrested on 4 January
Esmaeil Khodayari – Teacher, Qazvin – Arrested on 4 January
Kiumars Vaezi – Retired teacher, Sonqor – Arrested on 5 January
Mohsen Shabani – Physics teacher & photographer, Qazvin – Arrested on 9 January
Mehdi Nazari – Teacher, Nourabad-e Delfan
Arash Nikkhoo – Teacher, Illam
Ali Imani Motlagh – Teacher, Lorestan – Arrested on 28 January
19 January | Shokrolah Ahmadi released
Shokrolah Ahmadi, one of the two CCITTA members arrested last week, was released on Monday 19 January.
14 January | Crackdown on education unionists
EI member organisation the Coordinating Council of Iranian Teacher Trade Associations (CCITTA) has announced that two of its members have been arrested.
Abdulah Rezaei, CCITTA Board Member and the General Secretary of the Teachers’ Trade Association of Harsin, Kermanshah Province, and Shokrolah Ahmadi, CCITTA Inspector and Member of the Board of Directors of the Teachers’ Trade Association of Fars province have been detained.
Education International calls for their immediate release!
14 January | Watch the testimony of Shiva Amelirad, CCITTA Director of international affairs
13 January | Education International statement
Click here to read the Education International statement calling for an end to violent crackdowns and the protection of education communities in Iran.
Esmail Abdi's story: Imprisoned for years for defending teachers' rights
For years, education unions everywhere have been advocating for our colleagues in Iran, for their rights and freedom.
In this video, we hear directly from Esmail Abdi, a teacher and trade union leader who spent years in prison as a result of his principled advocacy for education, teachers’ rights, and the rights of students.
Arrested on his way to an Education International World Congress, Esmail was eventually freed thanks to the relentless advocacy and solidarity of his colleagues from across the world.
______________________________
Norman Mampane (Shopsteward Editor)
Congress of South African Trade Unions
110 Jorissen Cnr Simmonds Street, Braamfontein, 2017
P.O.Box 1019, Johannesburg, 2000, South Africa
Tel: +27 11 339-4911 Direct line: 010 219-1348