Iran

Respect Renewal MP George Galloway has been far from sympathetic to the case of Mehdi Kazemi, instead choosing to spew homophobic bile and defend the Iranian regime. Showing his complete contempt for human rights and democracy, he has levelled the ridiculous accusation that people campaigning against the deportation of Mehdi Kazemi are “the pink contingent of imperialism” — even though the protests are against our own government. The controversy started on 13 March on Channel 5’ s The Wright Stuff chat show, where Galloway said that the papers’ coverage of Mehdi’ s story amounted to...

AWL members, supporters and friends collected money for the campaign to free the jailed socialist students in Iran on the Stop The War demonstration in London on 15 March. We don't have complete returns yet, but the total must come to a few hundred pounds. The ordinary marchers had more positive attitudes than those expressed on the platform, where George Galloway sneered at "the pink contingent of the khaki brigade", suggesting that anyone who opposes the victimisation of LGB people in Iran is a pro-Bush warmonger. Sales of Solidarity on the demonstration were also passable. It was pretty...

On Saturday 22 March, at 2pm, Middle East Workers' Solidarity will be staging a protest opposite Downing Street in defence of Mehdi Kazemi, a gay Iranian asylum seeker who the British government threatened to send back to Iran on the grounds that if gay Iranians are "discreet about their sexuality", they will not get in trouble. In fact, Mehdi Kazemi's boyfriend in Iran has already been executed for being gay, and the regime knows about Mehdi Kazemi and will likely kill him if he returns. We are demonstrating to demand that he should not be sent to his death in Iran, and that he should be...

Hezbollah were among the organisations represented at the “World Against War” rally in Friends’ Meeting House, London on 25 February, with the Stop the War Coalition seeing fit to give a platform to the clerical fascist Lebanese militia. Reflecting the StWC’s eclecticism, this utter reactionary was speaking alongside Tony Benn, who gave his usual upper-class liberal speech about why the United Nations should be stronger and why we should learn from the Bible’s lessons of contrition. Introduced by Communist Party of Britain member Andrew Murray to rapturous applause from the 250-strong audience...

Thursday 6 March was a day of action for Iranian trade unionists facing political repression, jail and torture. The Rail, Maritime and Transport Union organised leafletting at stations in London, Edinburgh, Bristol Cardiff and Liverpool for the jailed Iranian trade unionists Mansoor Ossanloo and Mahmoud Salehi. This action is an important example to trade unionists across Britain of the kind of work needed to put real international pressure on the Iranian government. Mansour Osanloo belongs to the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company, a trade union founded three years ago. He...

In an effort unusual for British unions, the rail union RMT and the TGWU mobilised members on Thursday 6 March to leaflet at several rail stations in support of the jailed Iranian trade unionists Mansour Ossanloo and Mahmoud Salehi. Workers' Liberty members joined in to help, though sadly, in London at least, the rest of the left didn't. Mahmoud Salehi has sent a message to the protesters: The International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) and the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and their affiliates along with colleagues of the Global Unions Federations are organizing an...

Zohreh and Azar Kabiri are sisters and mothers. They were arrested on 5 February, 2007 following allegations of adultery by Zohreh’s husband. A month later they were prosecuted and sentenced to 99 lashes. After the sentence was executed, both were returned to prison for unknown reasons; and six months later they were tried again for the same crime but this time sentenced to death by stoning. At the first trial, which was conducted without a defence lawyer, the judge interrogated Zohreh and Azar and unlawfully obtained a highly dubious confession. The women say that the questions were...

The left devotes much of its efforts to campaigning against imperialism, which is no surprise given the present foreign policy of the American and British governments. However, in order to effectively combat imperialism and war, it is necessary that we understand what ‘anti-imperialism’ means, who is anti-imperialist, and what relationship that has with working-class politics. Unfortunately, the dominant conception of ‘anti-imperialism’ on the British left today, as schooled to thousands of young new activists by organisations such as the Socialist Workers’ Party, is wholly inadequate. As I...

The 16 February edition of Socialist Worker carried an interview with an Iranian activist about the growing socialist movement in Iran's universities (see here ). The article is reflective of a small but significant shift in the SWP's approach to Iran over the last few months. Whereas previously any discussion of solidarity with Iranian workers, students and so on was dismissed as a distraction at best and pro-imperialist at worst, the SWP now acknowledge the importance of solidarity. This has been reflected not just in the Socialist Worker interview, but in a Trafalgar Square demonstration in...

The last two years have seen an upsurge of the Iranian student movement — and a sharp turn to the left, as more and more student radicals become influenced by Marxism. Since December, the Iranian government has arrested dozens of socialist students for attempting to organise demonstrations. Laura Schwartz, Sacha Ismail and Sofie Buckland spoke to Azadeh and Kave , two activists now living in London who were until recently active at Tehran University. Kave: The British left seems to be in a horrible state. There are so many groups, and many of them are soft on political Islam, on Hizbollah...