Ei-iE

EI launched an urgent action appeal on 14 August in a bid to save Farzad Kamangar, a 33-year old teacher and former trade unionist from the Kurdistan Province of Iran, who is currently at risk of being executed following the ruling issued at an unfair trial.

Three teachers who joined a committee in support of Farzad Kamangar have been imprisoned, and several other trade unionists who have been calling for re-examination of his case are now receiving threats and phone calls from the Ministry of Intelligence, which does not hesitate to call family members of activists...

EI has written to Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi to deplore that the Charities and Societies Proclamation, a draft law, is a covert means of placing civil society organisations under government control. EI joined Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International in their criticism of the proposed legislation.

The recent controversy in South Africa on making condoms available in schools highlighted what remains a sensitive issue in some societies. The fear that sex education combined with access to contraception, including condoms, encourages young people to have sex at an early age is a very real concern for many...

Recent workshops in Venezuela and the Dominican Republic reflect the growing emphasis on intra-regional partnership. In this spirit of cooperation, Gabriela Bonilla of the EI Latin American Regional Office in Costa Rica and Rosario Avila from the Honduran teacher union movement travelled to facilitate workshops in Caracas and Santo Domingo.

The Namibia National Teachers’ Union, NANTU, has produced a comprehensive HIV and AIDS Workplace Policy. The document, which was drafted in consultation with the legal assistance centre in Namibia, was launched on 21 June during the National Teachers’ Council Meeting. NANTU plans to attune their EFAIDS activities to the policy...

Mor Mbengue, Deputy Secretary General of the Senegalese Union Démocratique des Enseignantes et des Enseignants du Sénégal (UDEN) travelled to Bamako, Mali to share his knowledge of the new EFAIDS toolkits with Malian colleagues. Forty national facilitators of the Malian Syndicat National de l’Education et de la Culture (SNEC) from...

The Global Union AIDS Programme is organising a two-day Labour AIDS Forum to facilitate trade union cooperation in advance of the biennial International AIDS Conference taking place in Mexico City from 3-8 August 2008.

The first round of consultation on the drafting of the ILO Recommendation on HIV/AIDS in the World of Work will soon close.

One of the highlights of the United Nations High Level Meeting on AIDS held in New York on 10 - 11 June was the presentation of the progress report on the implementation of the 2001 Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS and the 2006 Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS.

Odete Cossa recently joined WHO/AFRO and will liaise with the EFAIDS Programme in sub-Saharan Africa. She provides us with an insight into her work and her perspective of the EFAIDS partnership.

On 30 June, the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) launched a national strike action to press the federal government to implement the promised Teachers’ Salary Structure.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is determined to help American educators create better opportunities for all children by improving education quality throughout the United States. He criticized the Bush administration for having failed to give teachers the means to achieve the goals of the No Child Left Behind Act, which...

Farzad Kamangar could face execution in the near future, according to the web site Human Rights Activists in Iran. On 11 July, the Iranian Supreme Court confirmed the death penalty against Kamangar, a 33-year-old Kurdish teacher and trade unionist.

EI echoes the call from Public Services International to free Meryem Özsögüt. A member of the executive committee of the Health Workers Trade Union (SES), Özsögüt has been in jail for the past six months for having done nothing more than attend a press conference to denounce the killing of...

The convicted murderer of Argentine teacher Carlos Fuentealba has been sentenced to life in prison by a court in Neuquén, the city in which he was killed during a peaceful teacher union demonstration last year.

The national campaign of intimidation against human and trade union rights activists continues even after Robert Mugabe has been sworn in for another 5-year term. This follows an election process described by the African Union as "falling short of accepted AU standards."

Late on 26 June, EI received a disturbing update from Gemoraw Kassa, General Secretary of the ETA, established in 1949 and EI Member, informing EI that the court of cassation at the Federal Supreme Court ruled against the original ETA, 26 June.