Statement by the Coordinating Council of Teachers' Unions and Organizations in Iran

To the brave and conscious teachers, our dear pupils and students and the honorable people of Iran

Last year, hundreds of teachers who were protesting against the current state of the educational structure were arrested in a nationwide attack by the security forces. Then, with the security institutions on file and the complicity of the judiciary, heavy sentences were handed down to some of them. The teachers' unions have shown throughout their activity that they are independent of national and foreign political currents and seek only to change and reform the defective structure of the education system. 

International communication of trade union activists and teachers' organisations in Iran with independent teachers' organisations in other countries is quite common and accepted in all free countries of the world. These connections and the use of experiences of organisations and activists from different countries are very constructive and necessary. Obviously, these communications have nothing to do with governments anywhere in the world. In this regard, last year Mrs Cecil Kohler and her husband Mr Jacques Paris, the international representatives of the French teachers' union (FO) had a very friendly and informal meeting with a group of teachers during a tourist trip to Iran. These two French teachers who had travelled to Iran on a tourist visa and with the permission of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; after meeting with the teachers and a group of trade union activists, they were arrested and detained in the 209 security ward since that date. In a cynical and illegal act, the state television (Seda Sima), in collusion with the security forces, published the forced confessions of these two French teachers in a television programme. It is obvious to everyone that the televised confessions have never had and will never have any legal validity, and in this case also, based on the history of the trade union activity of these two teachers and the authorization of the security institutions for their travel to the country, everything that is said in the forced confessions is a pure lie, it has nothing to do with the reality. The security forces in a hurry and before questioning the arrested teachers and workers and explaining their accusations, in an illegal action in the very first days of the arrest, by making a clip, tried to attribute the teachers' protests to the plans of these two French teachers.

After six months, they try again with a new clip to attribute the September popular uprising to the leadership of these two teachers. 

Now everyone knows that these stories are the work of the scriptwriters of the security institutions. Iranian teachers are fighting against the commodification and monetisation of education while standing in solidarity with other teachers seeking rights around the world. Coordinating Council of Iranian Farmers' Unions