Mohammad Reza Shalgouni is a founder-member of the Organisation of Revolutionary Workers of Iran (Rahe Kargar) and has been elected as a member of its central committee on a number of occasions. He spent nine years as a political prisoner in Iran under the shah and today is an active supporter of Hands Off the… Continue reading Opposition to imperialism does not mean support for Ahmadinejad
Category: Articles
Oppose sanctions and military threats on Iran!
The United States and its allies are racketing up the pressure on Iran as they have recently forced the heavyweights of the petrochemical industry Vitol, Glencore, Trafigura, BP and Royal Dutch Shell to end petrol sales to the fifth largest oil exporter. The building, construction and manufacturing £13 billion conglomerate Ingersol-Rand has also ceased… Continue reading Oppose sanctions and military threats on Iran!
Two wrongs don’t make a right: hypocrisy and dangers of Ahmadinejad’s nuclear programme
Yassamine Mather Yassamine Mather looks at the politics, hypocrisy and dangers of Ahmadinejad’s nuclear programme: There seems to be no end to the confrontation between western governments and Iran’s Islamic regime over the nuclear issue. In the latest phase of the continuing saga, on February 23, a day after the announcement by the head of… Continue reading Two wrongs don’t make a right: hypocrisy and dangers of Ahmadinejad’s nuclear programme
‘Reformist’ confusion stunts opposition protests
Yassamine Mather reports on the February 11 Revolution Day celebrations Last week’s official celebrations of the February 1979 uprising that brought down the shah’s regime in Iran stood in total contrast to the events of 31 years ago. The Islamic state’s lengthy preparations for the anniversary of the revolution included the arrest of hundreds of… Continue reading ‘Reformist’ confusion stunts opposition protests
Against the status quo: An Interview with Iranian trade unionist Homayoun Pourzad
Despite unrelenting state repression, there have been rumblings throughout the 2000s of renewed labor organizing inside the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). One result of this upsurge in labor organizing was the May 2005 re-founding of the Syndicate of Workers of the United Bus Company of Tehran and Suburbs, a union that has a long… Continue reading Against the status quo: An Interview with Iranian trade unionist Homayoun Pourzad
‘Reformists’ fear revolution
Repression and Resistance The attempt by the two wings of the Iranian regime to shelve their differences is unlikely to defuse the mass movement, writes Yassamine Mather More than two weeks after the demonstrations of December 27 2009, the political repercussions of these events, and the reaction to the anger and radicalism of… Continue reading ‘Reformists’ fear revolution
Iran: regime crackdown disguises weaknesses in the face of opposition
Mehdi Kia co-editor Middle East Left ForumKargar) discusses the mass movement in Iran and the weaknesses of the theocratic regime. This article is from the magazine Permanent Revolution and was written in November. The coup in Iran, that took place through the June presidential elections, gave the appearance of the regime being firmly in the… Continue reading Iran: regime crackdown disguises weaknesses in the face of opposition
Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri (1922-2009)
The contradictory figure of Ayatollah Montazeri died in the early hours of Sunday, December 20. In one of his last statements, he warned that the current crisis in Iran was threatening the entire basis of the regime. Yet how did this man – originally a stalwart of the state, one of the main architects of… Continue reading Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri (1922-2009)
Is it the oil, stupid?
To say that oil figures prominently in the Middle East is to state the obvious. However, does this mean that the politics of imperialism in the region should be solely or mainly explained through attempts to gain control over oilfields and pipelines? That has certainly been the approach of much of the left in Britain… Continue reading Is it the oil, stupid?
Yassamine Mather: Workers organise against the regime
Workers organise against the regime first published in the Weekly Worker November 19 2009 More than 300 workers in the Abadan oil refinery gathered on Thursday November 12 to protest against non-payment of wages and bonuses, saying they had not been paid for more than three months. Hopi chair Yassamine Mather reports: The refinery authorities… Continue reading Yassamine Mather: Workers organise against the regime