How long after the inauguration of the new president before disillusionment sets in? Yassamine Mather discusses the limitations of Hassan Rowhani Iran’s new president, Hassan Rowhani, will take office on August 3. He faces major internal as well as international problems. It will be interesting to see how a man who describes himself as a …
Category archives: Articles
Iran election: Not a victory for progressives
On Friday June 14, Iranians voted in large numbers for ayatollah Hassan Rowhani, a regime insider who was elected as Iran’s president with 50.71% of the vote. A centrist, not a ‘reformist’, he became the candidate of an unofficial coalition between ‘reformists’ and ‘centrists’ forged three days before the vote, after green leader and former …
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Iran: Boycott sham elections
Yassamine Mather advocates a boycott and stresses the need for regime change from below On May 22, the US moved closer to imposing a full trade embargo against Iran, as the Senate reaffirmed US support for Israel – should it be “compelled to attack Tehran’s nuclear programme in self-defence”. The Senate voted unanimously to adopt …
Iran: Election farce exposes regime’s crisis
The Iranian elections are a travesty Supporters and apologists of Iran’s Islamic Republic in Respect,1 Counterfire2 and the Socialist Workers Party3 have in the past told us that Iran is not a dictatorship. It has democratic elections to determine the president and the composition of its parliament … The regime’s 11th presidential elections have demonstrated …
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Boycott the vetted election, not the mass protests!
The Islamic republic is bitterly divided at the top and subject to crippling international sanctions. Yassamine Mather analyses the political situation in the run-up to the June 14 presidential poll (First published in the Weekly Worker) On the last available day, ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani arrived at the ministry of the interior to register himself as …
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Moshé Machover: The formation of the Jewish nation
(First published in the Weekly Worker) Let me start with a proposition that should by now be a matter of general knowledge: the totality of Jews do not constitute a nation in the modern sense of this term; nor have they been a nation in any contemporary meaningful sense for well over 2,000 years. The …
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Syrian bombing: Netanyahu attempts to provoke new confrontation
Over the weekend of May 4-5 Israel launched air raids against targets in Syria. Yassamine Mather and Moshé Machover, two members of the Hands Off the People of Iran steering committee, discuss the issues raised by this latest development YM: The two Israeli air raids into Syrian territory have to be looked at in the …
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Iran: Corruption, repression, fightback
Yassamine Mather reports on the chaos that is the Islamic Republic In Iran, presidential elections are looming, the economy is in freefall, the public hanging of small-time criminals is creating an atmosphere of terror, repression is worsening and workers are protesting throughout the country. There are unconfirmed reports of an explosion at the Fordo uranium …
Sexism: Macho culture and the lessons we can learn from the Middle East
On Wednesday January 9 three members of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), including Sakine Cansız, a founding member of the organisation, were murdered in Paris. There are many theories about who was behind the execution-style killings and most of them relate to conspiracies to derail the current talks between the PKK and Turkey. It could …
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In the firing line
When is a political tribunal ‘non-political’? Hands Off the People of Iran national secretary Mark Fischer responds to the latest salvo of pro-imperialist apologetics Hands Off the People of Iran and the Weekly Worker have been sent a document authored by Dariosh Afshar, associate member of the Iran Tribunal’s International Communications Work Group. The Iran …