Well, I don’t think they’d value a Christmas card anyway, but I found a nice postcard of Tolpuddle to send to Mahmoud Salehi, currently in jail in Saqez.

Amnesty are asking everyone to write personal cards in solidarity to him and to Mansour Osanloo, who are both still imprisoned (along with other colleagues) for their trade union activities (Salehi in particular for organising May Day celebrations). You can find our how to write to them here.

And even more important is an urgent action on behalf of Mahmoud Salehi. He is seriously ill, and needs to be released for medical treatment, or there is a real danger he could die in jail, through serious kidney damage, which has brought on a heart condition and other complaints.

When Amnesty and the unions did the same for Osanloo, the authorities buckled and let him have treatment (even if they did take him back after). We can do the same again for Salehi.

The Iranian government has been clearly concerned by the international support for Osanloo and Salehi (indeed, 2 of the imprisoned unionists – Reza Deghan and Ebrahim Madadi have been released on bail), but they may be hoping that we’ll all just forget about Salehi’s urgent situation as we’re distracted over the Christmas/New Year break.

Please take these actions, send one more “Christmas card”, and help show that that is most definitely not the case.