Iran

We hear from Iranians that women there conducted small, short, scattered demonstrations on March 8, attempting to evade the government’s on-going repression of all protests. Fearful that the uprisings in the Middle East will spread to Iran, the government has intensified the crack-down it began against the mass protests following the stolen election of June 2009. The regime not only jails and tortures protesters, but also executes many prisoners. See the news on  radiozamaneh.com and iranma.org, which published an “Iranian Call for Global Action for IWD.” Following are excerpts from the Call’s appeal to the United Nations:

• “Stop gender-based apartheid
• Stop the incessant execution of political prisoners
• Stop the stoning of women
• Send a delegation to Iran to investigate the conditions of the prisoners”

“Fact sheet on the discriminatory laws in Iran:

1. Testimony of two women is equal to one man.
2. A man can marry a female child as young as nine years old.
3. A female is considered male property and subservient to him even in matters of sex
4. Forceful sex by a husband is not recognized as rape.
5. Divorce is the right of man.
6. The custody of children is the right of man.
7. Men have the right to have up to four wives and many female concubines.
8. Inheritance right of a male is twice that of the female.
9. Mandatory Hejab (covering of women) with no freedom of clothes for women.
10. Honor killings of the women have increased in Iran. Iran Human Rights reported <http://iranhr.net/spip.php?article803> on November 29, 2008: “A high ranking official in the Iranian police said in an interview with the daily newspaper Etemaad that there have been 50 honor killings in the last 7 months.”
11. Article 1117 of the IRI constitution empowers the husband to forbid his wife from accepting a job.
12. Article 1005 of the IRI Constitution dictates that the husband has the right to control his wife’s freedom of movement and behavior.”

Egypt

The participation of women in the revolution was unprecedented, and WSS will carry a report of a recent talk on it by Nawal El Saadawi, the feminist-socialist writer. We heard about the “Million Women March” held on IWD, just a few weeks after the Mubarak dictatorship fell, from both her and from Ahdaf Soueif, another world-famous Egyptian writers, both of whom had just participated in the revolution:

Soueif, speaking in New York on March 8, was asked about reports that the march had been attacked by Mubarak-associated government “thugs.” She replied that she heard the march had only 200 women, and “they should not have gone out with so few.” She also stated that all the Egyptian women’s NGOs had maintained throughout that the revolution was about economics, justice, and equal rights of citizenship, and not about gender issues.

El Saadawi, speaking a few days later, had a different report of IWD. She said that several thousand people had marched, the majority of them young men. The demonstration had been planned by young men who were protesting the military’s appointment of a committee to revise the constitution that contains no women and no young people. And only one woman was appointed to the new cabinet, to a minor post. There was no attack on the march, El Saadawi said, but after the women went home, the young men resumed camping out in Tahrir Square in order to give notice to the military that the people intend to move the revolution forward. It was those young men who were attacked that night by “thugs.”

She also said that “legal” NGOs had worked with Mubarak, while the Egyptian Women’s Union, with which she worked, was banned.

Ukraine

The first-ever IWD demonstration in Ukraine was held in Kiev on March 8. It was called Feminist Ofenzyva, “protest against exploitation of and discrimination against women.”  Short videos can be seen at http://www.youtube.com/user/BRYUKHOVETSKA

Peru

Peruvian feminists marched on IWD under this banner: "Women of all races and desires, fighting for our rights!"

Peru has a long-established, vibrant feminist movement. For IWD, a coalition marched and proclaimed: “Women can change Peru! If we change the lives of women, we change the world.”

A Peruvian friend of MHI who is active with women’s groups sent us their proclamation:

We are feminists, grass roots and peasant groups, unemployed, housewives, women who work in homes, indigenous women and women of African descent, homeless women affected by political violence, lesbians, workers in unions, students, writers, artists, disabled, people living with HIV.  Being more than half the population and the electorate, we say to vote your conscience in the coming elections!

The proclamation includes a list of 10 demands, which are partially summarized below:

1. a political system, free of male bias, that guarantees women’s participation and interests
2. an economy that recognizes women’s domestic and voluntary work
3. decision-making power over our lives and our bodies
4. eradication of violence against women, lesbians, and transgendered people; an end to sex trafficking and exploitation, prostitution, and race and gender discrimination
5. sexual and reproductive rights, eradication of maternal mortality, decriminalization of abortion in cases of rape and other cases
6. truth, justice and reparations for women survivors of political or sexual violence
7. education without discrimination and that helps to eradicate machismo and includes the indigenous
8. an end to the corruption and impunity of the State, and for transparency and a public ethic
9. faced with climate change, we want policies of prevention, mitigation and adaption
10. we demand our right to engage in social struggles and an end to criminalization of protests. ­­­

UASDI Supports the February 14^th Call for a Mass Demonstration in Tehran

in Solidarity with the Egyptian Peoples Movement Against Dictators;

Mubarak and Khamenei Should be Deposed

UASDI strongly supports all movements for democracy, particularly the current uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia and the freedom movement in Iran. We strongly support the call by various student groups in Iran for a solidarity demonstration in Tehran on February 14th.

The wave of uprising against dictatorships and corruption sweeping the Middle East has shaken despotic regimes the world over. Tunisians forced out Ben Ali and the Egyptians hope to do the same to Mubarak. And we sincerely hope that freedom loving Iranians will finally succeed in ridding themselves of the Islamic despots. There is new hope for the emergence of “real democracies” in the region and an end to the era of “pseudo democracies”, religious and secular despots.

Dictators of different stripes use similar tactics to maintain their grip on power. They routinely repress, torture and murder their own people with apparent impunity. Since global attention turned to Tunisia and Egypt, the Islamic regime in Iran shamelessly expedited its execution of prisoners-mostly prisoners of conscience. Since the beginning of January, on average, hangmen of the Islamic Republic have executed one human being every 8 hours. Ali Khamenei the “supreme leader” has consistently supported the bloodbath “in the name of God”. Thirty-two years of fundamentalist Islamic rule in Iran has clearly shown the need for separation of religion and state.

The Islamists in Iran are a class unto themselves, monopolizing power at all levels. Secular Shiites of any gender, Sunnis, Baha’is, Zoroastrians, Jews, Christians and atheists are in effect second class citizens.

UASDI encourages proactive support for the democracy movements in the Middle East, and indeed, the world. It is time to bring maximum pressure to end dictatorships. It is time for end the reign of Mubarak and Khamenei.

Union for Advancement of Secular Democracy in Iran

February 10, 2011

www.iranma.org

Email: uasdi.action@gmail.com

MHI condemns the FBI raids on Left activists that took place Sept. 24 in Minneapolis and Chicago. In Minneapolis, six Left and peace activists had their homes searched and their records, computers, and cell phones confiscated. Additional raids took place at an anti-war group’s office there and at two homes in Chicago. Those raided included some leaders of the 2008 demonstrations at the Republican Convention and people associated with one of the two Freedom Road Socialist Organizations.

The raids may have been precipitated by a meeting three days earlier between Iranian President Ahmadinejad and 100 Left activists in New York City. We condemn that meeting because those Leftists gave apparent support to Iran’s murderous and repressive regime by endowing Ahmadinejad with legitimacy, as if he were some kind of fellow peace activist. On the contrary, we stand with the thousands who demonstrated against Ahmadinejad and in solidarity with the people of Iran who want to end his rule.

The FBI raids on Friday were carried out with warrants issued under post-9/11 anti-terrorist laws. The government claims to be investigating violations of the law that prohibits Americans from giving “material support” to “foreign terrorist organizations.” Some of the raided activists had made trips to Palestine, Lebanon, and Colombia, and presumably the government suspects them of having contact with organizations it has named as “terrorist.” The FBI also served subpoenas on those raided and on other activists to appear before a federal grand jury in November, a total of eleven people in Illinois, Minnesota, and Michigan. Grand jury investigations were frequently used in the 1970s and 80s to harass and intimidate Leftists, without uncovering any “crimes.”

Protest demonstrations against the raids have been called in many cities. We hope they will address not only the raids, but also the use of grand juries and the post-9/11 laws that threaten our civil rights. Sweeping anti-terrorism laws make it illegal to give “material support” to any foreign organization that the government lists as “terrorist.” The list constantly changes. People have been prosecuted for giving money to groups they believed were using it for education or social services. We recently heard a federal judge describe publicly a case he presided over (and clearly thought was ridiculous) in which the defendant had done nothing more than translate some documents for a listed group, one that opposed the Iranian government. If the U.S. government brought that case, you can imagine what it will do to people whom it suspects of giving actual material aid to groups that support its enemies––and to people the government wants to silence because their movements threaten U.S. stability internally.

Laws adopted after 9/11 have been used to jail, deport, and harass innocent people in the U.S. who come from the Middle East, and to prosecute and harass Americans for their political views. We are seeing increased police and federal surveillance of demonstrations, preventative raids on and arrests of activists during periods leading up to demonstrations, and other dangerous erosions of our civil rights, including the right to free speech, which we had believed were constitutionally protected.

Friday‘s raids appear to be an attempt by the government to see how much it can get away with in terms of repressing Leftists, without engendering public opposition in the process. We are on a slippery slope if we do not widely condemn and resist these laws and actions.

* * *

We are also greatly disturbed by the fact that 100 U.S. Leftists chose to meet with Ahmadinejad when he was in New York for the opening of the UN session last week. The participants were reportedly from anti-war, labor, alternative media, and Iranian and Palestinian solidarity organizations. Among them were Sarah Martin of Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Margaret Sarfehjooy of the Minneapolis-based Women Against Military Madness, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, Sara Flounders from the International Action Center, Brian Becker of the ANSWER Coalition, Ramona Africa of the Free Mumia Coalition, and Amiri Baraka, poet and activist.

By their adventurist meeting with Ahmadinejad, the 100 implied their support for him at the very moment when he is using extreme repression against those who have peacefully protested against his government’s theft of the June 2009 election. Dissidents in Iran are frequently dragged from their homes, jailed and issued long sentences, and tortured, and some have been executed for the crime of participating in demonstrations. Iran has long pursued anti-gay, anti-women, and anti-worker policies. It is not necessary to support any of the opposition politicians (let alone the U.S. government) in order to unconditionally condemn the current regime and support the actions being taken by the Iranian masses to end it. We need also to protest against Ahmadinejad’s anti-Semitism and his speech at the UN implying that the U.S. orchestrated the 9/11 attacks on itself.

Some of the meeting’s participants’ organizations have long histories of supporting repressive regimes. Others simply belong to a part of the so-called Left that will support any group or nation opposed by the U.S. government, without regard to what that group or nation is doing to its own citizens or how atrocious are its politics. These Leftists subscribe to the policy that U.S. imperialism is the greatest evil in the world, and, therefore, anyone who opposes it should be supported.

The tendency within the U.S. Left to base politics solely on anti-U.S. imperialism, even when that means tacit support for reactionary politics like Iran’s, has brought ill repute on the whole Left. Only a Left that is totally out of touch with reality would think that it will gain adherents by being associated with Iran. Even governments that have flirted with Iran as a counterweight to U.S. hegemony, like Brazil, have pulled back from it—Lula recently made a plea to the Iranian government to stop the death by stoning slated for a woman convicted of adultery. We condemn every group, person, and government that flirts with Iran, and, in fact, we condemn those who do not speak out against the Iranian regime.

How much longer will the anti-imperialist Left be hobbled by the mentality that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”? When will it see the need to project what we are for? In our opinion, the anti-war movement has been shrinking instead of growing over the past nine years largely because of its tendency to condemn only U.S. imperialism. MHI members have urged the movement to develop people-to-people solidarity with the women, workers, youth, and minorities in Iraq and Afghanistan who are struggling against U.S. occupation and also against their own repressive governments, reactionary movements of political Islamists, and warlords. We believe Americans would want to support such organizations of women, workers, and others, if their stories were known. But our efforts to persuade the anti-war movement to re-orient itself in this manner have not succeeded. The movement has stuck to its narrow anti-imperialist politics. We believe that this is one reason why it has failed to gain enough popular support to affect U.S. warmongering.

Some months ago, we attended the opening of an International Socialist Organization (ISO) conference to hear the Afghan feminist and human rights advocate Malalai Joya, who was on tour promoting her recent book, A Woman Among Warlords. Joya had been expelled from the Afghan parliament for speaking the truth about the warlords in the government. She gave a beautiful speech calling for women’s rights and democracy as well as an end to the U.S. war. The ISO still proceeded to speak as if the only matter to be discussed was U.S. imperialism. One of us got the floor and repeated Joya’s call to support the Afghanis’ own struggles against their rulers and oppressors—adding that our talking about this was a way to build the U.S. anti-war movement. At the end of our member’s remarks, Joya got up, bent down over the edge of the stage, and kissed her on both cheeks. Whereupon an ISO speaker jumped up to say, on the contrary, that we should engage only in “knee-jerk anti-U.S. imperialism” (his words).

We urge the Left anti-imperialists who attended the meeting with Ahmadinejad to reconsider such “lesser evil” politics. They can only hurt oppressed people in other countries, endanger Leftists here by giving the government an excuse to attack the Left, and cripple the Left’s ability to build mass movements against U.S. policies. By remaining silent about or supporting odious foreign governments, they misdirect attention away from the capitalist nature of the entire world––the “two worlds in every country,” as Raya Dunayevskaya called it.

Some people complain that the Left is divided into too many small groups, and should unite around its common goals. We disagree. Rather than sinking to the lowest common denominator, we think Leftists need to clarify their politics, even if that means splitting into more groups. The American people should have a real choice—a choice between groups that promote ideas about building a new, non-capitalist and free society, and groups that are willing to reproduce existing social relations such as misogyny and warlordism, in return for a change of government.

We are battling on two fronts: against our ruling class, and against the bad ideas that dominate so much of the Left.

Scattered protests in Iran in apparent recognition of their international support on the 25th were quickly repressed. Iranians have largely stopped the mass protests of last month due to the arrests and beatings instituted by the government. Unknown numbers of people have been killed and disappeared since the protests began after the election. One speaker at the rally in N.Y. said the families who have been given their loved ones bodies are “the lucky ones” compared to those who cannot get any information about their disappeared relatives. But “the lucky ones” are forbidden to hold funerals for their loved ones.

Some 3,000 people have been arrested, not only during protests but also in night-time raids of activists’ and intellectuals’ homes. Many are still imprisoned under what are referred to as “harsh conditions”– such as those in notorious Evin prison, where people are tortured until they swear loyalty to the regime. They are not allowed to have visits from their families or lawyers. (For a list of those imprisoned, killed, injured, etc., see International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran.)

I marched in New York with more than 1,000 protesters (United for Iran has information about the protests around the world). Nearly everyone was Iranian or Iranian-American; there were many “three generations”: political refugees from the Islamic crackdown against the Left and others after the 1979 revolution, their children and grandchildren. They carried signs and chanted, “Give me my vote back,” “Release all political prisoners,” and “Down with the dictatorship.” Some linked struggles around the world: one sign read “Free all political prisoners from Attica to Evin to Abu Ghraib.” Young feminists carried signs that said “Say no to militarism” and “We stand with the struggle of our Iranian sisters.”

I met students who wanted to discuss how to avoid the mistakes of their parents’ generation and how to effectuate change that goes deeper than just putting in a new government, since none of the changes so far have brought freedom. I was carrying the Iranian edition of Dunayevskaya’s Maxism and Freedom, which elicited inquires from people curious about Marxist-Humanism. One woman, however, yelled at me because, she said, Pres. Ahmadinejad is a “Marxist-Islamist” and therefore Marxism is bad. There was also a small contingent of old-line Communists, and a counter-demonstration of Iranians who want to bring back the monarchy.

The U.S. Left was virtually absent, whether due to disinterest, or the line that to criticize the Iranian regime is to support U.S. foreign policy, or a belief that the Iranian protesters want nothing more than the opposition candidate for president – in spite of the fact that the protesters in Iran are chanting not only “I want my stolen vote back,” but also “death to the dictator.” The speakers at the N.Y. rally and people I talked with made clear that they oppose the entire “emerging military dictatorship” and are for a secular, democratic Iran with full women’s and human rights. In a video she made in support of the protests, Iranian human rights advocate and Nobel peace prize recipient Shirin Ebadi warns that Iran is in danger of becoming another Zimbabwe; a chant at the demonstration in N.Y. likened Ahmadinejad to former Chilean dictator Pinochet.

A frequent chant at the N.Y. rally was “What do we want?” “Freedom!” When do we want it?” “Now,” the cry of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s. Speakers at the rally in N.Y. included Ken Roth of  Human Rights Watch, Hadi Ghaem of the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, and the son of an imprisoned publisher, who made fun of the regime’s charge that the deaths have been caused, not by its militias, but by American and British agents: “What kind of government allows foreigners to walk around with guns killing people?”

The protests both inside and outside Iran are by no means limited to support for the opposition presidential candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, whose positions differ little from the current regime’s in supporting “free market” economics and who was responsible for the death of many progressive people when he was prime minister in the 1980s. Nor can the corrupt capitalist cleric Rafsanjani be expected to bring change. Rather, his opposition to Pres. Ahmadinejad is an indication that the current leadership is split. Reports are that power increasingly resides with neither the elected officials nor the clergy, but with the Revolutionary Guard, an independent military unit that also runs areas of civil authority such as the airlines (one marcher told me that the Guard’s unchecked authority and incompetence was responsible for the two recent plane crashes in Iran).

18 June, 2009

Dear Mr. Secretary General

We the undersigned, Iranian academics from different universities around the world, express our deepest concerns about the situation in Iran. The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has failed to respect the outcome of an electoral process which had already been restricted to four trusted candidates. In reaction to the peaceful protests by citizens and voters who felt cheated, the government resorted to outright violence, further suppression of rights and restriction of all media coverage. University dormitories have been attacked and students and faculty savagely beaten and detained. Most tragically, several students have already been killed.

We commend the remarkable and resilient actions of the grassroots organizations of Iranian civil society led by courageous women, students, teachers and workers, and support their demands for democracy, individual liberties, and political and religious freedoms.

We condemn the acts of violence against Iranians who are peacefully and legitimately demanding basic rights, and would like to request that you appoint and send a new Envoy to Iran to investigate the outright violations of human rights by the Iranian government.

Sincerely,

Signatories: (initial signatories so far)

Ali Akbar Mahdi, Ohio Wesleyan University, USA
Ali Rahnema, American University of Paris, France
Amir Hassanpour, Associate Professor, University of Toronto, Canada
Asef Bayat, Professor, Leiden University, Netherlands
Azadeh Jahanbegloo, Wright State University, Ohio, USA
Alireza Navabi, Adjunct Professor, University of Guelph, Canada
Bahram Tavakolian, Willamette University
Behrooz Moazami, Loyola University New Orleans, USA
Farhad Nomani, Professor, American University of Paris, France
Farrokh Guiahi, Associate Professor, Hofstra University, USA
Farrokh Zandi, Professor, York University, Canada
Fataneh Farahani, Stockholm University, Sweden
Fatemeh Moghadam, Professor , Hofstra University, USA
Haideh Moghissi, Professor, York University, Canada
Hamid Akbari, Northeastern University, Illinois, USA
Hamid Zangeneh, Professor, Widener University, USA
Hassan Shahpari, Villanova Univewrsity, USA
Ida A. Mirzaie, the Ohio State University, USA
Janet Afary, History, Purdue University
Khatereh Sheibani, Instructor, University of Guelph, Canada
Kamran Talattof, Professor, University of Arizona, USA
Kaveh Ehsani, Asst Professor DePaul University
Kazem Alamdari, California State University, Los Angeles, USA
Manijeh Mannani, Assistant Professor, Athabasca University, Canada
Mansoor Moaddel, Professor, Eastern Michigan University, USA
Maziar Behrooz, San Francisco University, USA
Mehrdad Darvishpour, Stockholm University, Sweden
Mehrzad Boroujerdi, Associate Professor, Syracuse University, USA,
Minoo Deraye, Assistant University, York University, Canada
Misagh Parsa, Professor, Dartmouth College, USA
Mojtaba Mahdavi, Assistant Professor, University of Alberta, Canada
Nayereh Tohidi, Professor, California State University, USA
Nima Mina, SOAS, University of London, UK
Norma Moruzzi, Associate Professor University of Illinois in Chicago
Omid Payrow Shabani, Associate Professor, Guelph University, Canada
Parvin Alizadeh, Senioe Lecturer, London Metropolitan University, UK
Peyman Vahabzadeh, Assistant Professor, University of Victoria, Canada
Ramin Jahanbegloo, Professor, University of Toronto, Canada
Reza Faiz, Asst. Professor, American University of Paris, France
Saeed Rahnema, Professor, York University, Canada
Shahram Alijani, School of Management, Paris, France
Shahrzad Mojab, Professor, University of Toronto, Canada
Soheila Pashang, Professor, Seneca College, Toronto, Canada
Sohrab Behdad, Professor, Denison University, USA
Valentine Moghadam, Professor, Purdue University, USA

More signatures to follow

“Streets people are in include Azadi Square, Laleh Park, Fatemi Street, Keshavarz Carriageway and streets surrounding Azadi Square.

“The slogans are ‘Down with Dictator,’ and ‘Down with Islamic regime’…”

Stephane Julien of Bataille Socialiste has notified us of a YouTube video of what looks like shootings in Tehran.

The regime’s repression of May Day demonstrators and jailing of trade unionists was a taste of what to expect during the current protests, which are the largest since the overthrow of the Shah’s dictatorship in 1979.

Below is a call from labor organizations to make June 26 an international “Global Solidarity Action Day” in support of Iranian workers and a list of the demands made at the May 1 demonstrations.

We should reject the view—shared by the U.S. bourgeois press and some of the U.S. Left–that the demonstrators are only against the stolen presidential election and for opposition candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi. Clearly, the election was rigged, and people want to change governments due to rising unemployment and inflation. But Iranian workers, women, and students have over the years risked everything in order to protest that theocratic, capitalist, misogynist, homophobic and thoroughly repressive regime. They have done so ever since the clerics seized power, truncating and destroying the liberatory basis of the 1979 revolution.

I am aware of the U.S. government’s interest in destabilizing Iran’s government, and that some of the labor organizations supporting June 26 are funded by the government and that they regularly betray their own members. These facts do not negate the need to support the masses in their opposition to the existing regime. I am aghast to see part of the Left responding with knee-jerk vulgar anti-imperialism, saying we may not criticize President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the clerics because the U.S. has a long history of imperialism there. To speak only of a supposedly “lesser evil,” or just to say “we don’t support either side,” is to ignore the crucial question of what we are for. I believe the Left needs to recognize that there are two worlds in every country, the rulers and the ruled, and to solidarize with the masses of workers, women and students in Iran.

–Anne Jaclard

Global Solidarity Action Day:
Statement by the International Alliance in Support of Workers in Iran

International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), International Union of Food workers (IUF), International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and Education International (EI) and have called for a Global Solidarity Action Day on June 26, 2009 in support of workers in Iran. The Amnesty International has also joined this action. Their demands include “the immediate and unconditional release of all imprisoned trade unionists including Mansour Osanloo, Ebrahim Madadi and Farzad Kamangar”; “Unconditional recognition of all independent workers’ organizations in Iran and reinstatement of workers who have been disadvantaged as a result of their support for these organizations”; and “ratification of core ILO Conventions on freedom of association and the right to collective bargain by the Iranian government”…. See http://www.justiceforiranianworkers.org

The IASWI welcomes the June 26th Global Solidarity Action Day and urges workers and labour activists to take part in this day of action. We fully support and promote the demands of workers in Iran including the *2009 May Day resolution of Workers in Iran, which is stated below.

In collaboration with other Iranian labour, left and progressive activists and organizations, and through support of labour organizations and activists in other countries, the IASWI activists have been planning and organizing demonstrations and other actions in support of workers’ struggles in Iran in recent weeks. There have been protests in Canada, England, Switzerland, France and other countries. We’ll issue a more detailed report on all this soon. As labour activists and a solidarity organization, we will participate, and organize relevant actions, on June 26th day of action anywhere we can.

It is important to emphasize that as a labour organization in abroad we do not think the Islamic regime of Iran has any desire in accepting workers’ legitimate demands. This regime has unquestionably proved to be one of the major barriers on the way of workers to establish their own free and independent workers’ organizations in Iran and its so called “presidential election” as always is not going to make any difference, if not worse, as far as the interests of the working people, poor, women, students and other oppressed people are concerned. Iranian workers so urgently need their own organizations in order to be able to fight more effectively against the capitalists’ agenda and neo-liberal policies of privatization, mass lay offs, shut downs, de-regulation and so on. The Iranian regime knows this reality very well and thus it is very determined to suppress the growing labour movement. There is a very clear class struggle in Iran, and the working class in Iran is faced today with extremely serious and major challenges and obstacles.

We are urging workers and rank and file labour activists in different countries to engage in worker to worker solidarity initiatives with the Iranian workers. The labour movement in Iran is genuinely and refreshingly progressive, anti-capitalist and internationalist. It deserves full support of all progressive forces and workers’ and socialists’ organizations around the world. The day of action on June 26, 2009 is highly needed in the same way as other solidarity actions thus far by workers in Iran and other countries, but unless we built a strong and ever-lasting worker to worker solidarity movement with the working class in Iran in different countries and in partnership with workers, and labour and progressive activists and organizations, Iranian workers will continue to suffer and face the greatest difficulties in fighting back against the existing repressive capitalist system and in leading their struggles to decisive victories.
Long Live Workers’ International Solidarity
International Relations-International Alliance in Support of Workers in Iran
www.workers-iran.org

***********

June 10, 2009
*Demands of Iranian Workers on Occasion of May First
International Workers’ Day

1- Guaranteed job security for all workers and abolition of temporary-contracts, blank-signed contracts and all new application forms for employment contracts.

2- In our opinion the minimum wages legislated by the Supreme Labour Council is nothing but imposition of gradual death on working class families. We adamantly demand an immediate increase in minimum wages, based on workers’ own estimates expressed through workers’ real representatives and their independent workers’ organizations.

3- The right to form independent workers’ organizations, strike, protest, assembly, and freedom of speech are all part of our inalienable rights. They should be recognized unconditionally as such.

4- Workers unpaid wages shall be immediately paid. Any non-payment of wages shall constitute a criminal act and litigated. Workers shall be compensated for any damages due to non-payment of wages.

5- The expulsion or lay-off of workers under any pretext must be stopped, and all who have been unemployed or have reached the minimum age of employment and are prepared to work, shall receive unemployment insurance benefits, – compatible with decent living standards, until the time of employment.

6- We demand full equality of women and men in all spheres of social and economic life. All discriminatory laws shall be abolished.

7- All retirees should enjoy a comfortable life free of economic worries. We strongly condemn any bias or prejudice in paying the retirees pensions and benefits.

8- We strongly support all demands of teachers, as intellectual workers, nurses and other toiling sectors of society. We consider them as are our allies, and call for the fulfillment of their demands. We demand annulment of Mr.Farzad Kamangar’s death sentence.

9- Since seasonal and construction workers are denied any and all social benefits, we fully support all their demands to obtain such benefits.

10- The capitalist system is the source of child labour. All children regardless of their parent’s social and economic standing: their gender, national, ethnic or religious background shall enjoy all educational, welfare and medical benefits.

11- We demand release of all incarcerated workers, including Mansour Osanloo and Ebrahim Madadi, and an end to persecution of labour activists and withdrawal of all sentences against them.

12- We fully support all freedom and equality seeking movements, such as students’ and women’s movements. Their arrests, trials and incarcerations are strongly condemned.

13- We are part of the global working class, and as such condemn any expulsion and exploitation of Afghan or other migrant workers in Iran .

14- We appreciate the international support towards workers’ struggles in Iran and express our adamant support for all protests and struggles of workers throughout the world; we consider ourselves their allies. We more than ever before emphasize on international solidarity of working class as the path to liberation from the hardships of the capitalist system.

15- May 1st shall be recognized as an official holiday and instituted in the official national calendar as such. All limitations and restrictions for the commemoration of The May Day shall be abolished.
LONG LIVE THE FIRST OF MAY
LONG LIVE INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY OF WOPRKING CLASS
May 1st, 2009 (Ordibehest11, 1388)
The May Day Organizing Committee
- The Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Vahed Bus Company
- The Syndicate of Workers of Haft Tapeh Sugar Cane Company
- The Free Union of Workers in Iran
- The Founding Committee of the Syndicate of Building’s Painters and Decoration’s Workers
- The Center for Workers’ Rights in Iran
- The Collaborative Council of Labour Organizations and Activists
- The Coordinating Committee to Help Form Workers’ Organizations
- The Committee to Pursue the Establishment of Free Workers’ Organizations
- The Women’s Council
- A Group of Worker Activists