Another day of bloodshed and resistance in Iran – June 24

Resistance on the streets of Tehran
Resistance on the streets of Tehran

Today saw thousands of people come back out on to the streets of Iran in opposition to the brutality of the Iranian regime. The supreme leader has said that he will not yield to street protests and has not been shy in turning the squares and streets of Tehran into rivers of blood. Fierce clashes have taken place in Baharestan Square, near parliament. The protesters defended themselves with rocks and the creation of barricades and at one pointed routed Basij scum from their positions.  At this time we can be sure that at least one person has been shot dead and over 30 have been injured in the clashes at Baharestan Square.

Thousands of parents and relatives of detainees attempted to petition the authorities today outside Tehran’s Enghelaab (Revolution) Court but were attacked by security forces with a dozen joining family members in Iran’s jails and police stations.

Over 500 protestors gathered at Sadeghieh Square and were quickly attacked by Basij and Hezbollah, at Tajrish Square, Anak Square and Azadi Square thousands of protestors were driven back after being attacked by security forces. Though the security forces were met with sustained opposition and were drive back  at times.

Outside of Tehran protests have continued and we expect to receive reports very soon. What the last couple of days have shown is that the people of Iran are not simply staying at home but are facing down a gauntlet of bullets and batons to challenge the regime.

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Message from Iranian Workers’ Free Trade Union

Message from Iranian Workers Free Trade Union

23 June 2009

ftuiw1Forty-eight days have passed since the suppression and arrest of workers’ gathering on International Labour Day – May Day. During this time our country has witnessed important events and we witness widespread and amazing changes in the social movement.

During their televised debates the presidential candidates repeatedly accused each other of violating citizens’ rights, embezzlement, theft, mismanagement, and incompetence. But none of them had any objection to the laws that have allowed the disastrous events affecting the majority of the population. None of them had any objection to legislation that takes away a worker’s right to strike, sets his wages at a quarter of what is the government’s poverty line, takes away the workers right to set up their own organisations, allows mass lay-offs, forces workers to sign blank contracts a one-month temporary contract .

The presidential candidates failed to take up issues regarding freedom of speech, the right to choose one’s dress, and hundreds of other inhuman laws that today govern our society. When they raise any issue it was in a superficial way, every one of them attempted to clear himself and accuse the others, as if his opponent had been more strict than himself. In all those debates, clearly and in confronting each other, the candidates themselves proved that they accept all the current laws and conditions and that their only quarrel is on who should be in power.

Therefore, we workers, under the present conditions, when social protests have taken the form of a mass and a huge movement has come on the scene to achieve its demands, see it as our right to put forward the demands of fellow workers and to raise our banner. These demands are as follows:

  1. Immediate increase in the minimum wage to over 1 million tomans [$1010] a month.
  2. An end to temporary contracts and new forms of work contracts.
  3. The disbanding of the Labour House and the Islamic Labour Councils as government organisations in the factories and workshops, and the setting up of shoras [councils] and other workers’ organisations independent from the government.
  4. Immediate payment of workers’ unpaid wages without any excuses.
  5. An end to laying-off workers and payment of adequate unemployment insurance to all unemployed workers.
  6. The immediate release of all political prisoners including the workers arrested on May Day, Jafar Azimzadeh, Gholamreza Khani, Said Yuzi, Said Rostami, Mehdi Farahi-Shandiz, Kaveh Mozafari, Mansour Osanloo and Ebrahim Madadi, and an end to surveillance and harassment of workers and labour leaders.
  7. The right to strike, protest, assemble and the freedom of speech and the press are the workers’ absolute right.
  8. An end to sexual discrimination, child labour and the sacking of foreign workers.

Workers! Today we have a duty to intervene, to pose our demands independently and by relying on our own united strength, together with other sections of society, to work towards achieving our human rights.

The Free Trade Union of Iranian Workers

New Rally planned in Iran

We reprint this article from Al-Jazeera English as it provides good information on unfolding developments within the opposition…

Middle East Iran protesters plan new rally

Supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi, the defeated main opposition candidate in Iran’s presidential election, have called for a protest outside parliament in Tehran in defiance of a government ban. The rally was scheduled for 4pm (13:30 GMT) on Wednesday in one of the capital’s main squares after the Guardian Council, Iran’s highest legislative body, said that the results of the disputed poll would not be annulled. The planned gathering will be a key test of whether a government crackdown, which has left at least 19 people dead, has quelled the angry demonstrations that followed the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the incumbent president.

basiijnewAlthough streets protests have diminished since police and pro-government militias used tear gas, batons and water cannon against protesters on Saturday, calls for further protests among supporters of Ahmadinejad’s opponents have continued. Cries of “Allahu Akbar” (God is great) were again heard across Tehran overnight, a symbolic gesture echoing a tactic used during the Islamic revolution in 1979. Nazenin Ansari, the diplomatic editor of the Kahylan newspaper, told Al Jazeera that the fall in numbers gathering to protest was understandable given the “degree of repression on the streets”. “Without a doubt, although there are not millions gathering on the streets because of the indiscrimante fire and repression, this is going to transform,” she said. “In provinces, where people were before gathering in universities, in recent days were are seeing people gathering in main squares.”

Complaints withdrawn

Mousavi, a former prime minister, and the two other candidates in the election have all filed complaints to the Guardian Council about alleged problems with the June 12 vote. But on Wednesday, Mohsen Rezaie, the conservative candidate who finished third in the election, withdrew his objections. “I see it as my responsibility to encourage myself and others to control the current situation,” the official IRNA news agency reported Rezaie as saying in a letter to the Guardian Council. “Therefore I announce that I’m withdrawing my submitted complaints,” the former head of the Revolutionary Guard said. Rezai had originally complained that he had won more votes than he had been credited with when the interior ministry declared the results. “I think he wants to remain in the framework of the Islamic republic – the framework that conservative newspapers are trying to push Mousavi and Karroubi out of,” Al Jazeera’s Alireza Ronaghi, reporting from Tehran, said. “Mohsen Rezaie intends to stay close to the core of the Islamic republic and shwo his allegiance to the supreme leader by obeying his call that the elections are over.”

‘No major fraud’

Despite Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, agreeing to extend the deadline for filing election complaints by five days, a spokesman for the Guardian Council has said that there will not be a fresh vote. Iran unrest online Social media is playing a crucial role in Iran’s crisis. “If a major breach occurs in an election, the Guardian Council may annul the votes that come out of a particular affected ballot box, polling station, district or city,” Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei was quoted as saying by Press TV, an Iranian government-funded station. “Fortunately, in the recent presidential election we found no witness of major fraud or breach in the election. Therefore, there is no possibility of an annulment taking place,” he said.

Mehdi Karroubi, who came in fourth in the poll, according to official results, has called for Iranians to hold ceremonies on Thursday to mourn those killed in the protests. His call came after Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a dissident religious leader who is under effective house arrest, announced three days of national mourning from Wednesday. Montazeri was once named successor to Ayatollah Rohullah Khomeini, but fell out with the founder of the Islamic Republic shortly before his death in 1989. Barack Obama, the US president, on Tuesday repeated his remarks that the world was watching events in Iran and said that how Tehran handles dissent from its own people “will help shape the tone, not only for Iran’s future, but also its relationship to other countries”.

‘marg bar Ahmadinejad, marg bar Moussavi, marg bar Khamenei’ – HOPI Ireland take to the streets

Hands off the People of Iran held a very successful demonstration outside the Iranian Embassy in Dublin last Saturday, 20 June. We will continue our protest this coming Saturday 27 June at 2pm, Central Bank, Dame Street Dublin.

The demonstration began at 1pm, at the same time that people were taking to the streets of Tehran in defiance of the oppressive state forces. A number of Iranian activists joined us as well as members of Irish left wing groups and campaigns. We chanted slogans in support of the struggle and called for the overthrow of the Islamic republic. We also made clear in our speeches and slogans that we are against any imperialist intervention in Iran – any US attempt at regime change from above must be opposed. The hell holes created by imperialism in Afghanistan and Iraq are examples of the terrible devastation wrought by imperialism.

One of Iranian comrades did a fantastic job on the megaphone, shouting ‘marg bar Ahmadinejad, marg bar Moussavi, marg bar Khamenei’. He and most other Iranians there were fully supportive of our principled position on imperialism. However a leading member of a group called ‘Free Iran’ was opposed to our anti-imperialism and said he supported sanctions. We made it clear that we will not countenance any compromise on this vital question. The US, under Bush or Obama is not a friend, but a dangerous enemy of the Iranian people.

We continued our discussions later at a meeting in Seomra Spraoi, where the debate centred on the prospects for the left in Iran and whether the protests are simply about rigged elections. It was a passionate and lively debate and we finished by agreeing to organise another demo this coming Saturday pm at the Central Bank, Dame Street Dublin. We will also be holding meetings in other cities, with a meeting in Cork on 2 July, 8pm Victoria Hotel Patrick Street.

Join us in showing your solidarity. Let’s send a message to the protestors in Iran that we are on their side!
Contact Anne on 086 23 43 238 Anne@hopoi.info www.hopi-Ireland.org

June 23 – The Revolutionary Guard fail to scare the people off the streets

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Written reports will follow.

From the hospital workers’ strike

“من پزشک هستم و در بیمارستان رسول اکرم در خیابان ستارخان مشغول به
کارم. دیروز تعداد 38 نفر به دلیل
اصابت گلوله در اورژانس بیمارستان ما پذیرفته شدند که 10 نفر آنها کشته و
بقیه زخمی بودند. الگوی زخمها حاکی از این بود که مردم به رگبار بسته شده
اند زیرا بسیاری از مجروحین دو یا چند گلوله خورده بودند و محل اصابت
گلوله ها نیز بسیار نزدیک به هم بود، به عنوان مثال پیر مردی 68 ساله در
دو ناحیه کتف چپ و سمت چپ شکم مورد اصابت قرار گرفته بود و یا پسری 18
ساله از ناحیه کف و مچ دست هدف قرار گرفته بود. شرح حال اخذ شده از
مجروحین و نیز الگوی زخمها نشان می داد که تیر اندازی از پشت بام انجام
شده است، مثلا جوانی 32 ساله از کمر مورد اصابت قرار گرفته بود ولی گلوله
از جلو و از قسمت ران خارج شده بود.

بنا به گفته مجروحین تیر اندازی به طور ناگهانی و زمانی آغاز شد که سیلimage001
جمعیت در حال عبور از کنار یک پایگاه بسیج در شمال میدان آزادی (اول
بزرگراه محمد علی جناح) بود. به گفته مجروحان یک اتومبیل در مقابل درب آن
پایگاه به شکلی پارک شده بود که کسی نتواند با شکستن در وارد آن شود و
این امر نشانه برنامه ریزی قبلی برای تیر اندازی می باشد. به گفته شاهدان
حدود 4 نفر بسیجی از پشت بام این مرکز به طور ناگهانی اقدام به تیراندازی
نمودند به نحوی که حتی کسانی که قصد نجات زخمی ها را داشتند خود نیز مورد
اصابت قرار می گرفتند. یکی از مجروحین می گوید در حالی که پشت یک اتومبیل
پناه گرفته بودم زخمی شدم.

در این مرحله مردم خشمگین به اتومبیل پارک شده در مقابل این پایگاه حمله
کرده و آنرا به آتش می کشند ولی نمی توانند وارد پایگاه شوند. در ادامه
پلیس ضد شورش به همراه گروه های دیگری از بسیجیان برای پراکنده کردن مردم
خشمگین از راه می رسند که در این مرحله نیز در قسمت هایی از طول خیابان
جناح (به عنوان مثال در نزدیکی مترو) عده دیگری نیز کشته و زخمی می شوند.

طبق اطلاعاتی که امروز صبح از پزشکان بیمارستان امام خمینی کسب شد، به
این بیمارستان نیز در طی دیشب 38 کشته که با گلوله مستقیم کشته شده بودند
منتقل شده است.

لازم به ذکر است که در بامداد امروز پلیس امنیتی تمامی جنازه ها را به
زور از بیمارستان تحویل گرفته و آنها را با وانت به محل نا معلومی منتقل
کرده است و خانواده بسیاری از آنان حتی از کشته شدن فرزند خود نیز بی
خبرند. در بین کشته ها و مجروحین تعدادی کودک 15 و 16 ساله نیز دیده می
شوند.

امروز ساعت 9 تا 11 صبح دانشجویان و پزشکان بیمارستان رسول اکرم در
خیابان مجاور این بیمارستان تجمع کرده و به توزیع برگه هایی حاوی
اطلاعاتی پیرامون تعداد کشته ها و زخمی ها اقدام نمودند. این تجمع در
نهایت با حضور پلیس ضد شورش به پایان رسید”.

Cricket for Iranian workers: HOPI vs Labour Representation Committee

hopicricket

1 August 2009 at 12pm, Low Hall Sports Ground, Walthamstow E17, then social at Dalston Social Centre.

Hands Off the People of Iran play the Labour Representation Committee in 30 overs of cricket with John McDonnell MP and Attila the Stockbroker leading the two teams – all in order to raise as much money as possible for the Iranian workers’ movement.

The plans are slowly taking shape for what should be an excellent day with cricket, a barbecue, a bar, and some promising entertainment in the evening with Atilla the Stockbrokerheading up numerous artists and bands.

We have set ourselves the target of 1,000 pounds but are quietly confident that we can ago well above this if we put our minds to it and draw in as many of our vast supporters as possible. Such funds are absolutely central to our comrades in Iran organizing in the most difficult of situations and now facing a hugely repressive crackdown on their protests and rallies.

This is why it is absolutely vital that the workers’ movement in this country organizes material and ideological solidarity. The working class needs its own foreign policy linking the workers’, women’s and students’ struggles in Iran with those in this country and elsewhere.

So, we need need your help to get this event off the ground and to hopefully make it so successful that there will be many similar events for years to come!

Can you?

*Play? The standard will be more ‘village’ than ‘Test Match’ so even if you have to brush off those pads after years of neglect – get in touch! Both female and male playerswelcome! The LRC in particular is looking for players…

*Send a message of solidarity which we could use to build the event?

*Umpire/Score? Fancy getting involved in keeping tabs on a game that will probably go down to the wire? Have the expertise to decide whether comrades’ bowling is too far to the left or (or the right?) Know somebody who does? Get in touch!

*Make teas/master a barbecue/pour a decent pint? All this will be central to the day’s fundraising

*Provide a donation to help cover some of the costs we will incur during the day?

*Help to publicise the event amongst friends and on the internet or send a message of support for us to put up on our blog?

Many thanks,

Rory MacQueen, LRC National Committee

Ben Lewis, HOPI Steering Committee

www.hopivslrc09.wordpress.com

“Natarsid! Natarsid! Mah hameh bah ham hastim!” – Another day of defiance in Iran

Defiance
Defiance

Thousands of people defied bullets, batons and death and came out onto the streets shouting “Natarsid! Natarsid! Mah hameh bah ham hastim!”  (Don’t be scared! Don’t be scared! We are all together!). June 20 saw the mass murder of demonstrators by security forces, it is unclear how many people are dead as estimates range from 11 to 150. With media outlets severely restricted it could be some time until we are given the true number. State organs such as Press TV have described the murdered protesters as “terrorists”. HOPI received an eye witness report of  yesterday’s violence which can be found here. We will try to acquire eye witness reports of today’s events, until then below is a brief outline of some of today’s events.

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Around 50,000 people converged on the United Nations office where the police attempted to disperse the crowd, however, they were met with rocks and barricades.  A candle lit vigil for those killed yesterday in Hafte Tir Square was attacked by police.  Fights and demonstrations broke out across Tehran, protestors in the South of Tehran on Fallah Street were attacked by special officers. It has been called a middle class rebellion by some commentators, as the South of Tehran has been quiet compared to the more affluent North of Tehran, today proved them wrong as young people and workers gathered in Eslamshahr to march towards the centre of Tehran. All across the South of Tehran fights broke out with today as thousands marched against the brutality of the Islamic Republic.
In the squares of Tehran security forces were again waiting for demonstrators, at Vanak and Enqelab demonstrators were viscously attacked by police and Basij, whilst outside of Tehran in Sanandaj, Saqz, Kermanshah and others, thousands of people have fought running battles with the police. As the night drew in, people took to their roofs and shouted “Marg Bar Diktator” (Death to the dictator) and “Allah Akhbar” (God is great).