USLAW Protests Arrest of Iraqi labor activists

USLAW Protests Arrest of Iraqi labor activists

U.S. Labor Against War

P.O. Box 153, 1718 M Street,N.W., Washington, DC 20036

E-Mail:info@uslaboragainstwar.org

Website:www.uslaboragainstwar.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 12, 2003

For information, contact:

USLAW Co-Convenor Bob Muehlenkamp, 301-346-3665

USLAW Co-Convenor Gene Bruskin, 202-833-8526

Hacene Djeman, General Secretary International

Confederation of Arab Trade Unions

PO BOX 3225, Damascus (Syria)

Fax: 963-1144-20323. E-mail:icatu@net.sy

Daniel Gluckstein, Coordinator International Liaison

Committee of Workers and Peoples

87, rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis, 75010 Paris (France).

Tel.: 331-4801-8828. Fax : 331-4801-8836.

E-mail : eit.ilc@wanadoo.fr

International Labor Network Condemns Arrest of Iraqi Labor Leaders

On Saturday, August 2, at 11:30 p.m., Baghdad local time,

U.S. occupation forces arrested Qasim Hadi and fifty-
four other Iraqi leaders and members of the Union of
the Unemployed in Iraq who had been engaged in a five-
day sit-in protest of the treatment of unemployed Iraqi
workers by occupation forces and U.S. corporations
granted contracts for work in Iraq. We are informed
that the detained workers were released only after the
intervention of representatives of the United Nations.
These were not armed combatants. They were not
terrorists. These were unemployed workers peacefully
protesting, exercising their democratic right to seek
redress for their grievances.

U.S. Labor Against War joins with the International
Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples and the
International Confederation of Arab Trade Unions to
unequivocally condemn these arrests. The U.S. cannot
claim to be acting in the interests of the Iraqi people
with the objective of establishing a democratic
government in Iraq while violating internationally
recognized labor and human rights of Iraqi workers who
seek to exercise their democratic rights to peacefully
protest and seek redress for their grievances.
The bedrock of any democracy is the right of dissent
and the right to seek redress for grievances against
the ruling order. One of the principal building blocks
of a democratic government and society is the existence
and operation of an independent labor movement. Iraq
is signatory to more than fifty of the International
Labor Organization Conventions on labor rights, at the
center of which is the right to organize and to protest
treatment and conditions. U.S. and other occupation
forces are obligated to respect and honor those
Conventions.

We call upon the U.S. and other occupation forces to
immediately and fully respect all of the rights
guaranteed by the ILO Conventions. Further, we call for
the immediate withdrawal from Iraq of all U.S., British
and other combatant forces. The U.S. and other
Coalitionpartners in the invasion of Iraq are morally
and legally obligated instead to provide whatever
resources are required to meet that country’s
humanitarian needs and for reconstruction and repair of
damages caused by their military actions.
In pursuit of these objectives, we have launched an
International Campaign for Iraqi Labor Rights. We are
committed to support Iraqi workers as they organize
their own independent, democratic labor movement free
of interference by employers and all external
interests. Accordingly, we intend to send an
international delegation of labor leaders to Iraq to
monitor the observance of labor rights there. Details
about this delegation will be forthcoming.