Shahrokh Zamani Action Campaign

On February 19, as part of the ‘active boycott’ of the parliamentary and Assembly of Experts elections, a number of Workers’ Action Committee comrades put up posters in one of the busiest areas of Kermanshah (western Iran). These posters, featuring five political prisoners and Shahrokh Zamani, had earlier been suggested to the Committee for distribution.

Boycotting the elections does not mean staying at home, but that the election charade must actively be boycotted within the election campaign itself. Boycotting the elections is to continue the struggle and not a rest break. Active boycott of the elections is at the same time a method of struggle against passivity and pacifism. With their recent activity the Committee’s active comrades have demonstrated this matter. Let us build a broad united action on boycotting the elections by supporting political prisoners.

Photos sent by these comrades will be published.

Workers’ Action Committee

20 February 2016

Republished from the Iranian Workers’ Solidarity Network website

Photographs and video (in farsi) from the picket on 26 February in support of the active boycott of the Iranian elections and freedom for political prisoners.

February 11th: Trade Union leaders show support for workers struggling for free and independent Trade Unions in Iran. (at London Trade Union rally, protesting the anti-Trade Union Bill, see also Right To Strike campaign).

Liz Lawrence, National President, University & Colleges Union

Martin Powell-Davies, National Executive Committee member, National Union of Teachers

February 11th: Video (in farsi) from the lunchtime picket at the London embassy and evening Trade Union rally protesting the British government’s anti-Trade Union Bill (see also Right To Strike campaign)

On February 11th  activists in London gathered at the Iranian regime’s embassy to protest against the usurpation of the glorious revolution of 1979 by the most blood-soaked section of Iran’s bourgeoisie. February 11th is the official celebration of ‘Revolution Day’ in Iran, where the Iranian capitalist state celebrates a totally distorted history of the Iranian Revolution, one where the reactionary Shia hierarchy led the revolution against the Shah!

However, the truth is that the Iranian Revolution was made by Iranian workers, fighting not only against the corrupt monarchy but also against the failure of the capitalist system to provide them and their families with the basics necessities of human life. They were robbed of their gains in the revolution and then savagely repressed for over 35 years.

We chose this day to protest at the Iranian state’s treatment of the labour movement that fought for freedom in 1979 and continues to fight for freedom today.

To protest Hassan Rohani’s official two-day visit to France a group of activists picketed the London embassy of the French Republic.

Rohani’s European tour has already taken him to Italy and the Vatican. While in France he will be received by François Hollande at the Élysée Palace and will sign trade deals and memoranda that will help boost profits for French and Iranian capitalists.

As in Italy, the general repression in Iran and the severe measures taken against labour activists and the left will not be discussed. It is clear that the improvement in diplomatic and trade relations between the capitalists of Iran and Europe comes at the expense of Iranian workers’ rights.

The demonstrators unfurled the banner of ‘Iranian Workers Are Not Alone’ outside the embassy and chanted slogans in support of all imprisoned workers in Iran. They also demanded that the suspicious death of Shahrokh Zamani be investigated independently. Their placards called for freeing all jailed workers and political prisoners, for workers to have the right to organise and to go on strike.

The protesters included comrades from Alliance for Workers’ Liberty and Iranian Workers’ Solidarity Network. We thank all picketers for helping us to publicise the struggles of Iranian workers and showing their solidarity with the recent upsurge in protests and strikes.

Free all political prisoners now!
Long live independent workers’ organisations and the right to strike!
Investigate Shahrokh Zamani’s death!
Iranian workers are not alone!

Iranian Workers’ Solidarity Network
27 January 2016

A photo from tonight’s picket, more to follow:

Much fuss has been made about Hassan Rohani’s Italian hosts covering up nude statues in Rome’s Capitoline Museum to save him from blushing!

Critics of Matteo Renzi’s government, mostly right-wing politicians in Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia and the Fratelli d’Italia party, have condemned the boxing up of Venus and other classical nude statues as “negating our own [culture]” and “a kind of surrender.”

This hoo-ha has missed two very important points:
1- For over 36 years Iranian women – i.e., real, living and breathing human beings – have been forced to cover themselves from head to toe so that the country’s male population are not ‘shamed’ or ‘sexually provoked’!

This nonsense is, of course, an excuse for the religious and political authorities of the regime to intrude in the smallest personal details of every woman’s life at home and the way she dresses outside the home. And the male relatives, whether they agree with the policy or not, have to ‘watch over’ the girls and women so that the family is not ‘shamed’ or hauled in front of a court for ‘offending’ the authorities.

But did Rohani’s Italian hosts consider the sensibilities of nearly 40 million girls and women when glad-handing him? We don’t think so.

2- Hassan Rohani is the so-called ‘president’ of a regime that for decades has persecuted workers, women, youth, national and religious minorities, writers, artists and any other kind of dissident for the slightest expression of opinions that are not approved by the authorities.

And if anyone dares to take independent action based on such opinions and ideals then they are locked up in jail, tortured and even executed. This regime is particularly vicious in smashing the struggles of workers to form independent trade unions and establishing the right to strike.

Again, we don’t think that anyone in Matteo Renzi’s government mentioned anything about the systematic abuse of workers’ rights. There just wasn’t any time when there were €17 billion ($18.4 billion) of business deals to sign with Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Danieli (the steel company) and their like!

Now that Rohani is in France we expect workers’ and women’s rights to get the same treatment.

Free all political prisoners now!
Long live independent workers’ organisations and the right to strike!
Investigate Shahrokh Zamani’s death!
Iranian workers are not alone!

Iranian Workers’ Solidarity Network
27 January 2016

Norman Lamont, the Conservative politician and pro-Pinochet campaigner, has been appointed by the Britain’s Tory government as its envoy in charge of developing trade with Iran’s dictatorship.*

Norman Lamont first found infamy as Chancellor of the Exchequer when he presided over Britain’s forced exit from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). Although most people called September 16th 1992 Black Wednesday, an event that cost Britain’s Treasury around £3.3 billion, the next day Lamont was found to be very cheerful and claimed that he had been “singing in the bath this morning”!

Lamont’s second claim to infamy came when on October 17th 1998 the British government was forced to detain General Augusto Pinochet in compliance with an international arrest warrant issued by a Spanish judge, Baltasar Garzón. Norman Lamont became the Chilean dictator’s most vociferous supporter after Margaret Thatcher.

Even though the Pinochet regime had “killed at least 3,197 people and tortured about 29,000” (Obituary, Washington Post, December 11, 2006), that did not stop Norman Lamont from being very active at different levels, and using many channels, to help the dictator escape from Britain and not face any judicial process. He constantly tried to portray the twice-elected Salvador Allende, the prime minister toppled and killed by Pinochet, as a bigger evil than the head of the military junta who became an international symbol of state brutality against the left, workers, women and the poor! Lamont also peddled the notion that a trial could destabilise Chile’s new-found democracy!

Given the political history of Norman Lamont, who has now been ‘elevated’ to the House of Lords, we know that his dealings with the Iranian regime will at no point bring up the issues of political executions, political prisoners, detention without trial, torture and the many other forms of abuse that sustains the dictatorship.

More specifically we do not expect Norman Lamont to let the rights of workers to form independent trade unions and the right to strike, or women’s equal treatment by the state and society, or the rights of national and religious minorities and all other oppressed layers in Iranian society to come in the way of the multi-billion pound trade and investment deals that the capitalists of Britain and Iran are planning.

The capitalist classes of both Britain and Iran have their clear agenda and they have selected the experienced personnel who can deliver that agenda. It is now time for the workers of Britain and Iran to co-operate against this common enemy to make sure that their rights are not trampled on in the drive to make big profits for capitalists in both countries.

Free all political prisoners now!
Long live independent workers’ organisations and the right to strike!
Investigate Shahrokh Zamani’s death!
Iranian workers are not alone!

Iranian Workers’ Solidarity Network
25 January 2016

* “Norman Lamont has been appointed UK trade envoy to Iran as part of a wider government attempt to improve Britain’s disappointing export record.” (Financial Times, January 20, 2016)