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ITF/TUC: Bahrain crackdown decried at Embassy visit

by Courtesy

ITF/TUC: Bahrain crackdown decried at Embassy visit
17 November 2011 – BCHR

Representatives of the TUC, the ITF, NASUWT and Unison are meeting with Bahrain’s Ambassador to the UK in London today to register a joint protest over the treatment of workers and demonstrators in the Gulf state.

They are raising the matter of the thousands of people sacked and the hundreds facing trial or sentenced for supporting the pro-democracy movement in Bahrain.

Over 2,600 workers have been dismissed, and hundreds more have been suspended. Some have been offered their jobs back, but on inferior terms and under conditions such as agreeing not to join a trade union – many of whose leaders are facing criminal charges, often on spurious ‘security’ grounds.

The delegation to the embassy is made up of: Ben Moxham, TUC (Trades Union Congress) international policy officer; Stuart Howard, ITF (International Transport Workers’ Federation) assistant general secretary; Dr Patrick Roach, NASUWT (National Association of Schoolmasters/ Union of Women Teachers) deputy general secretary; and Nick Sigler, Unison head of international relations.

Brendan Barber, TUC general secretary, said: “Trade unionists and workers in Bahrain are being punished for peacefully calling for democracy and reform in the country earlier this year.

“On behalf of our sister organisation, the General Federation of Bahrain Trade Unions (GFBTU), and indeed every Bahraini, we are asking the government to decisively lift the threat of prosecution from all those threatened with it, and allow Bahrain’s workers to return to their workplaces free from fear.”

Stuart Howard, ITF assistant general secretary, added: “The cases of the health workers imprisoned for doing their jobs shocked the world. Alongside them can be set the similarly endangered teachers, journalists, port workers and transport workers of Gulf Air and DHL.