Esmail Abdi
Age: 47
Activities/Rights: Teacher’s Trade Unionist
Status: Kachouii Prison
Judicial status: 10 years imprisonment, awaiting retrial
Violations: Arbitrary arrest and detention, lack of due process, unfair trial, access to lawyer, denial of medical care, prolonged solitary confinement
Esmaeil Abdi is a teacher, civil activist and member of the Iranian Teachers’ Trade Union who has been arrested and imprisoned for his union activities on multiple occasions. First briefly arrested in 2007, he was arrested on two other occasions before his house was searched by the Ministry of Intelligence and his personal belongings confiscated in May 2010. In 2011, the Revolutionary Court, presided over by Judge Pirabbasi, sentenced Esmaeil to 10 years imprisonment, which had been suspended for five years, on charges of “propaganda against the system” and “links to enemy states.” He was re-arrested on 27 July 2015 by the IRGC Sarallah forces and spent 10 months in detention, after which he was released on bail. On 22 February 2016, Esmail was sentenced to six years imprisonment for charges of “assembly and collusion against national security” and “propaganda” by Branch 15 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court presided over by Judge Salavati which was upheld on 7 October 2016. He was arrested at his home on 9 November 2016 to serve out his sentence. He was furloughed from prison due to the COVID-19 outbreak in prisons in March 2020 but was detained when he went to the Evin Prison Prosecutor’s Office to extend his furlough on April 20, and returned to Evin Prison.
Esmaeil went on several hunger strikes in protest to fabricated security charges against activists which has exacerbated his existing health issues. He was transferred from Evin Prison to Karaj Penitentiary on 17 March 2021. On 20 November 2021, the Free Union of Workers announced that Esmail should have been released after serving his six-year sentence but his previous 10-year suspended sentence had been enforced to keep him behind bars. He was transferred to Kachouii Prison on the sixth day of his hunger strike against the growing widespread repression of teachers and workers on 6 May 2022, which he ended on 14 May at the request of his union and other political prisoners. Esmail was denied medical treatment and the recommended medical furlough at Kachouii Prison and transferred to the military ward. His request for a retrial was granted by the Supreme Court on 23 November 2022 after several failed attempts. While he should have been released on bail pending his retrial at Branch 29 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, authorities have refused their legal obligation to release him. He continues to send critical messages from prison while supporting the people’s movement which his wife has been told is the reason for the refusal to release him.