Education International, a labor organization, has frequently called for Esmail Abdi's release and campaigned for global solidarity with him and other Iranian teachers imprisoned.
In 2018 Mohammad Habibi, a member of the board of directors of ITTA-Tehran, was arrested following a gathering of the group and subsequently sentenced to ten and a half years in prison as well as 72 lashes.
[6] In Iran's northern province of Gilan, Aziz Ghasemzadeh who is a spokesman for the teachers' union was arrested in October 2021 while conducting a phone interview with a Persian-language broadcaster.
Aziz Ghasemzadeh had spoken at a protest gathering the day before his detention, right before the start of the new school year in Iran.
A teacher and activist named Mohammad Ali Zahmatkesh was reportedly detained as he left his home on his way to a protest event.
In addition, the Karaj Revolutionary Court condemned teacher and activist Jafar Ebrahimi to four years and six months in prison on 24 January.