News of jailed comrades

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is sen.pngOn 15 April 2011 the Supreme Court of India granted bail to Dr Binayak Sen.
The campaign for his complete exhoneration continues.

Dr Binayak Sen sentenced to life imprisonment
In May 2007, Dr Binayak Sen was detained for allegedly supporting an outlawed political group. Sen first applied for bail before the Raipur Sessions Court and then the Chhattisgarh High Court in July 2007, soon after his arrest, but was only granted bail by the Supreme Court of India on 25 May 2009; news which we reported on our free our comrades page.

Unfortunately we must now report that on 24 December 2010, the Raipur Sessions’ Court found Binayak Sen guilty of connections with a banned organization and sentenced him to life imprisonment. The conviction was widely criticized as politically motivated and based on falsified evidence. Sen is considered by Amnesty International to be a prisoner of conscience.

Mansour Osanloo suffers suspected heart attack
The Iranian trade union leader Mansour Osanloo, unjustly imprisoned for the last four years,  has been taken to an outside hospital after suffering chest pains that could be caused by a heart attack.

In 2007, Mansour Osanloo, now aged 50, president of the ITF-affiliated Vahed Syndicate (Tehran Bus Workers’ Union) was dragged from a Tehran bus by members of the Iranian security forces. Three months later he was sentenced to five years imprisonment on charges of ‘acting against national security’ and ‘propaganda against the state’; in 2010 another year was added to his sentence. In reality his only ‘crime’ has been to help found a genuinely democratic trade union for his fellow bus drivers. More…