Iran

Mansour Ossanlou is a leader of the Syndicate [Union] of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company (Sherkate Vahed). He was arrested and imprisoned in December 2005. Following huge national and international pressure Ossanlou was released in August 2006, but rearrested in November. He has since been released on bail and is awaiting trial on the charge of “propaganda against the state” and “engaging in activities contrary to national security”. This is from an interview with the Iranian Workers Bulletin in April 2007. Full version is at: www.iranianworkersbulletin.org /IWB/Issues/NEWS12.pdf On...

BY Sacha Ismail Across Iran, workers seeking to celebrate May Day faced harassment and violence from the Islamic Republic’s security forces. In Tehran, at an official, state-sponsored rally, Alireza Mahjoub, the head of the “Workers’ House” labour front used by the government to control workers, was interrupted by chanting workers and could not finish his speech. Seven thousand workers then left the stadium and attempted to march into central Tehran, but were attacked by the security forces and forced to disperse. In the Kurdish capital Sanandaj, workers had requested permission to march but...

On 9 April, the Iranian security forces in Saqez, in Iranian Kurdistan, asked well-known working-class activist Mahmoud Salehi (who is former president of the city's Bakery Workers' Association) to attend the local prosecutor's office to negotiate about how May Day would be celebrated. However, when he arrived, Salehi was told that the Kurdistan Appeal Court had reached the final verdict on his arrest on May Day 2004, when he was charged with various “crimes” including support for the Worker-communist Party of Iran, condemning the government for the murder of worker activists at Khatoonabad...

As the dust continues to settle on the row over the captured sailors, a much more interesting and potentially earth-shattering story is unfolding in Iran. In Solidarity 3/109 Paul Hampton examined the description of the workers’ movement contained in a new book, Iran on the Brink* by Shora Esmailian and Andreas Malmby. Mick Duncan spoke to these activists and authors, who here expand on some of the themes of their book. SE/AM: Iran has a long history of class struggle. The key dates of this history are : • 1906: the Constitutional Revolution. The Shah was forced to accept the formation of the...

By Paul Hampton The theocratic regime is stepping up repression in an attempt to quell the burgeoning workers’ movement in Iran. Last week an appeal court passed sentence on four leaders of the Saqqez protests in Iranian Kurdistan in May 2004, which marked a turning point for the new movement. On 13 April the Kurdistan Court of Appeal sentenced Mahmoud Salehi to one year in prison, effective immediately with three years suspended. The court also confirmed two years imprisonment for Mohsen Hakimi, Jalal Hosseini and Borhan Divargar, but suspended the sentences for three years. The three were...

By John O'Mahony The saga of the sailors and marines captured by Iran on the high seas on 23 March, held for 12 days, and then freed on 4 april, tells us a great deal about Britain now, on the even of the 10th anniversary of Liar-King Tony's coronation. Captured by a state usually depicted in the British press as a bitter enemy, and as a possible future target for military attack, these serving military personnel nevertheless crumpled in a few days. Some of them went on Iranian TV to make Iranian government propaganda. They endorsed the Iranian account of what had happened, acknowleged that...

From Workers' Liberty Teachers NUT conference bulletin 2007 For many years the ‘International Section’ of conference has been dominated by motions and amendments offering various interpretations of the world situation. Most of these have focussed exclusively on the crimes of Western imperialism or the actions of Israel alone. Little to no comment has been offered on the brutality of regimes such as Iran or movements like Hamas and Hezbollah. Oppression is not a one-way street. Murders are not the sole prerogative of US or Israeli guns and bombs. The world is not divided into ‘good’ and ‘bad’...

So the British sailors captured by the Iranian navy have now been released. Their capture was a deliberate provocation by the Iranian regime, possibly in part to distract from the working class struggle now gripping the country. For the last few weeks Iranian teachers have been protesting against poverty wages and poor conditions. Many thousands have taken to the streets or staged unofficial sit-in demonstrations in schools. They have risked their personal safety in acts of audacious solidarity against the Islamic regime. The teachers initially demanded negotiations with the government over...