TEHRAN, April 7, 2008 (AFP) - Iran has freed on bail a Kurdish labour activist
after one year in jail, a press report said on Monday.
"Mahmoud Salehi was freed on Sunday on a 400-million-rial (43,500 dollars) bail
after more than a year in jail," the Kargozaran newspaper reported.
A former leader of the bakers' union in the town of Saqez, in Eastern Kurdistan,
Salehi was jailed for one year on charges of harming national security in April
2007.
Salehi went on a total hunger strike in March amid fears that new charges that
had been issued against him would prolong his detention beyond his scheduled
release date, the rights watchdog Amnesty International has said.
According to Amnesty, the new charges involved communicating with individuals
outside of prison to issue messages of solidarity to other activists being held
in jail.
Rights groups and unions had been calling on the Islamic republic to release
Salehi and the head of Tehran bus conductors' union Mansour Ossalou, who has
pushed for stronger unions in Iran.
Ossalou was last year sentenced to four years in prison for acting against
national security and to an additional year for disseminating propaganda against
Iran's Islamic system.
Iran has stepped up its crackdown on rights activists in recent years and dozens
of women's rights advocates, students and unionists have been arrested on
security charges.
