Shapour Ehsanirad

Age: 60

Activities/Rights: Free Union of Workers in Iran

Status: Released

Judicial status: Pardoned

Violations: Arbitrary arrest and detention, denial of medical care, lack of separation of crimes, access to lawyer, lack of due process, unfair trial

Shapour Ehsanirad is a prominent trade unionist, a board member of the Free Union of Workers in Iran, the former representative of the Saveh Profile Rolling Mill workers and a founding member of the Social Security Pensioners Workers Council. First arrested in 2009 for holding a Workers Day ceremony along with Jafar Azimzadeh, he has faced multiple arrests for his activism. For his arrest in 2019, he was sentenced to six years imprisonment by Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court for “assembly and collusion against national security and propaganda against the system” and a two-year ban on group and party membership and a two-year exile in Sistan and Baluchestan.  Shapour Ehsanirad was arrested at his home in Saveh on 17 June 2021 and transferred to the Greater Tehran Penitentiary to serve his sentence. On October 8, he was physically attacked by violent crime prisoners in the 2nd Brigade of the Greater Tehran Penitentiary along with several other political prisoners who had complained about the lack of security and requested to be transferred to another ward in their meetings with prison officials. Shapour and seven other political prisoners were acquitted of “disrupting prison order” charges that were brought against them on 7 November 2022.

Shapour was released from Evin Prison on 10 February 2023 after being included in the general amnesty list.