Defend Iranian Woman Labor Leader Parvin Mohammadi
On December 21, 2020, the Iranian government sentenced Parvin Mohammadi, in absentia, to a year in prison on charges of “sedition.” She has refused to go to prison, continues to challenge the authorities, and has now gone into hiding.
Parvin Mohammadi was born in 1961 in a working class family. After graduating from high school, she was not able to attend university because she needed to work to support her family. This was the period shortly after the 1979 Iranian Revolution. She was hired as a worker by the Melli Shoe Company which had been expropriated by the Islamic Republic’s Mostazefan Foundation (a parastatal entity). In the Winter of 1981, when workers at the Melli Shoe Company went on strike, she became a strike leader. After some workers were arrested and other workers occupied the factory, the state used tanks to take back the factory from the workers. They were severely punished and Mohammadi was expelled.