Mansoor Osanloo, the head of the Vahed Syndicate (Tehran Bus Drivers Union) was finally released in June on payment of a bond and dependant on ‘good behaviour’. He had been in poor health and had previously been tortured while in prison on an earlier sentence. In 2007,Mansour Osanloo was sentenced to five years imprisonment on charges of ‘acting against national security’ and ‘propaganda against the state’ and in 2010 another year was added to his sentence. He had been trying to establish a democratic trade union for bus drivers. Other members of the Tehran’s bus workers’ union currently in detention include Ebrahim Madadi, Reza Shahabi and Gholamreza Gholamhosseini. Reza Shahabi was taken to hospital on 26 November during a hunger strike. He had began the hunger strike after authorities turned down his request for bail a second time and increased the cash sum they demanded for his release. After a few days out of prison he was again sent to Evin Prison, where he began a second hunger strike in protest. On 22 December, Reza Shahabi ended his 30-day hunger strike. On 30 November, Ebrahim Madadi, Vice-President of the Tehran Bus Drivers Union, was released from prison on bail after being imprisoned since December 2008. However, he was re-detained on 7 December. He had been sentenced to three and a half-year imprisonment in December 2008 on charges of “endangering national security”. At the end of the year he remained detained in Evin prison. In October authorities issued court summons to Seyed Davood Razavi, a former treasurer of the Tehran bus drivers’ union, and to his fellow Vahed executive board member, Yaghoub Salimi.
However two activists from the bus workers’ union were released from detention. Morteza Komsari and Aliakbar Nazariis of the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company were released at the end of December.