Iran

Support the workers’ movement in Iran!

Statement by the International Alliance in Support of Workers in Iran The recent extended wave of oppression against the well-known activists of workers' organisations in Iran and other social movements is not a new incident but a routine practice of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This wave of repression nevertheless exhibits particular characteristics, including the radicalisation and development of class-based labour protests, advancing social movements within the specific socio-economic context and pressures from both within the country and internationally. These conditions have jeopardized...

No to war, no to the Islamic Republic!

US Vice-President Dick Cheney is reported to have thought up a clever scheme to launch an attack on Iran. In this plan, Israel will bomb an Iranian nuclear installation, Iran will respond by launching missiles at Israel, and this will serve as the pretext for an American attack. We don’t know whether there is any substance to such rumours. On one level, military action against Iran sounds implausible: could anyone really be that crazy? The commissars of US imperialism are aggressive, for sure, but they operate within a partially rational framework of “national” i.e. US ruling-class interests...

Osanloo and Madadi receive long jail sentences

Two leaders of the Iranian bus workers’ union have been given long prison sentences for “acting against national security”, according to reports from Iran. Mansour Osanloo, the president of the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Vahed Company was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for “propaganda against the system and acting against national security”, while Ebrahim Madadi, the vice-president was sent down for two years for “acting against national security”. Parvaneh Osanloo, Mansour Osanloo’s wife vowed to fight these unjust sentences. She said that doctors had recommended six...

Iranian bus-workers leaders get long jail sentences

Two leaders of the Iranian bus workers’ union have been given long prison sentences for “acting against national security”, according to reports from Iran. Mansour Osanloo, the president of the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Vahed Company was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for “propaganda against the system and acting against national security”, while Ebrahim Madadi, the vice-president was sent down for two years for “acting against national security”. Parvaneh Osanloo, Mansour Osanloo’s wife vowed to fight these unjust sentences. She said that doctors had recommended six...

Pro-regime speech on Iran at Stop The War conference provokes walkout

See attachments for the leaflet we distributed at the conference. The Stop The War Coalition conference, which took place in London on 27 October, featured Somaye Zadeh from the SWP-led group Campaign Iran telling us that "the lies about Iran" aren’t true. These "lies" include that the Iranian regime is undemocratic (Ahmedinejad was voted in with a large majority - never mind the widespread evidence of ballot-rigging, the open exclusion of dozens of candidates or the fact that you can only stand at all if you're a male Islamist!), that it persecutes gay people (despite “problems with...

Iranian Regime Blinds Bus Workers’ Leader Osanloo

Mansour Osanloo, the Iranian bus workers’ leader, has lost the sight in one eye after being denied the urgent medical treatment he needed in prison. Apparently he has now received medical treatment... too late to save his sight. Osanloo, President of the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company (Sherkat-e Vahed) has been detained in the brutal Evin prison in Teheran since July this year. His eyes were first injured in May 2005 after he was attacked by government security forces, who also cut his tongue, leaving him with a lisp. Osanloo has been repeatedly harassed by the Iranian...

Pressure on Iranian government needed to save union leader's eyesight

Mansour Osanloo, the jailed leader of the bus workers' union in Tehran, faces the possible loss of his eyesight unless he receives urgent medical attention -- which the Iranian authorities are denying him. Amnesty International has just now launched an online campaign calling on the Iranian government to allow Osanloo to receive medical attention. I urge all of you to sent off your messages today. The Iranian government must be made aware that the world is watching. The International Transport Workers Federation (ITF), which has spearheaded the international campaign in defense of Osanloo, has...

Workers News Roundup

Iranian sugar workers strike Workers at an Iranian state-owned company went on strike at the beginning of October over several months’ of unpaid wages. Workers from the Haft Tapeh Sugar Cane Plantation and Industry Company gathered in front of the Governor’s Office in Shush city, in Khuzestan province in southern Iran and vowed to stay on strike until their demands were met. The workers have been on strike 16 times over the past two years. But for two years they got nowhere with the management or any government officials. Haft Tapeh Sugar Cane is the only sugar cane factory in Iran and was...

Bush ally threatens war on Iran.

John Bolton, who was US ambassador to the United Nations until a few months ago, told a fringe meeting at Tory Party conference on 30 September: “I think we have to consider the use of military force [against Iran]. I think we have to look at a limited strike against their nuclear facilities.” According to the Guardian, Bolton added that: “If we were to strike Iran it should be accompanied by an effort at regime change... The US once had the capability to engineer the clandestine overthrow of governments. I wish we could get it back.” Bolton had been renominated by George W Bush for another...

Al Quds counter-demo

On 7 October, supporters of the Iranian regime are organising an “Al Quds Day” demonstration in London (assembling 12:30 at Marble Arch). This year, the march is backed not only by the Muslim Association of Britain, George Galloway, Yvonne Ridley, Hizb-ut Tahrir, etc., but also by Respect and the 1990 Trust (in which Ken Livingstone's adviser Lee Jasper is prominent). Below is an (abridged) text from the committee which has organised counter-demonstrations against similar marches in Berlin. In 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini called for an annual event on the last Friday of the Islamic fast month of...

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