socialist iranian students demonstrate

by S. Parsa

Up to 2000 left wing student activists demonstrated this weekend in various parts of Iran, on the annual “Student day” (16 azar/6 December). The Freedom & Equality Seekers, the main left student group in Iran, protested in universities of Tehran, Urumia, Mazandaran, Shiraz, Isfahan and also in the Kurdish regions.

Behrouz Karimizadeh, an active member of the group Freedom and Equality Seeking Students, who now resides in London, has told us that their group was under much pressure this year: “Last year over 70 of our members were arrested. This year we were under a lot of threats and pressure and decided instead not to call for demonstrations ourselves”. Many of the official demonstrations were only called by the Tahkim Vahdat organisation (Office for Strengthening Unity), and their post-graduate group Advar. Both of the groups are semi-governmental and the only officially recognised and legal student bodies in Iran.

the freedom and equality group’s slogans at mazandaran university read “freedom of women means freedom of society”; “student movement: in solidarity with workers’ and women’s movements” and “free thinking is our right”

two hands off the people of iran meetings

Barack Obama has made it clear that he “will do anything” to stop Iran from developing the capacility to produce nuclear weapons. The global economic crisis has made world imperialism more belligerent. How do we fight the danger of another disastrous war in the Middle East?
7pm, Wednesday November 26. King’s College London. Strand Campus, The Strand (Temple tube)

Revolutionary Struggle in Iran
with Torab Saleth (Workers Left Unity Iran)
7:30pm, Tuesday 2nd December, University of Manchester Students’ Union – Meeting Room 1

Click here for details of HOPI conference, taking place in London on December 13th.

issue 1 of the commune published

We are pleased to announce the publication of the first issue of our newspaper The Commune. You can order a printed copy (£1 per copy + postage and packing) by emailing uncaptiveminds@gmail.com or writing to The Commune, 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, London EC1V 4PY.

click here for pdf, or see individual articles below

nationalisation is no answer for our class! – Editorial part one

the dual crisis of labour and capital – Editorial part two

civil service dispute on ice? – by Steve Ryan, Wrexham PCS

report of pro-choice demo 20th october

are we really fighting in unison? – by James Caspell, Lambeth UNISON

the crisis of capitalism – interview with Andrew Kliman, author of Reclaiming Marx’s Capital

henry paulson’s bureaucratic collectivist fantasy – by Ernie Haberkern

william morris: against ‘state socialism’ – by Terry Liddle

for institutions of workplace democracy – by Gregor Gall, Professor of Industrial Relations, University of Hertfordshire

the class struggle in iran – by David Broder

platform of the international communists

hands off the people of iran conference

new section: ‘videos’

We have added a new section to the website – videos– in order to advertise films portraying working-class struggles and other videos which may be of interest to our readers.

Currently the ‘videos’ section features links to three films relevant to our discussion series on class struggle in the 1970s, as well as the press conference held by Iranian socialist student activists on September 29th 2008; footage of the massacre of Bolivian peasants in Pando; and a debate with the Communist Party of Great Britain on the lessons of France’s May-June 1968 general strike.

press conference with behrooz karimizadeh and kaveh abbasian

On Monday 29th September there was a press conference at the University of London Union with Iranian activists Behrooz Karimizadeh and Kaveh Abbasian. The pair were among the founding members of Freedom and Equality Seeking Students, an organisation which is opposed to war and sanctions as well as the Islamist régime and which last autumn played a central role in student protests against President Ahmedinejad. Following these demonstrations the régime cracked down on the student movement, arresting dozens of activists – Behrooz Karimizadeh was subjected to torture. Ted Crawford has kindly given us permission to reproduce his report on Monday’s press conference:

photo-report of al quds day demonstration

by David Broder

Sunday 28th September saw the “Al Quds day demo”, an Islamist demonstration against the Israeli occupation of Jerusalem. The protests have taken place annually since a 1979 decree by Iranian Islamist cleric Ayatollah Khomeini during that country’s counter-revolution.

Counter demonstrations were organised not only by leftist critics of the Iranian regime (most prominently the Worker Communist Party of Iran) but also a separate protest which included Iranian monarchists and right-wing liberals; supporters of the Israeli government; and British fascists attacking the Al Quds demo not for its participants’ politics but out of racism.

convention of the left

next weekend sees the convention of the left, a counter-conference held in manchester at the same time as the labour party conference. the convention will be a site for the left, (and hopefully not just the left groups), to have some open discussions, an all-too-rare occurrence.

report on student stop the war rally

by David Broder

There were two self-proclaimed “socialists” on the platform at the Student Stop the War rally in London today – Tony Benn and Lindsey German – and most of the one hundred people in the audience were from the Socialist Workers’ Party and other “socialist” groups. But working-class politics was not on the agenda. Not only did they fail to cite the workers’ movement as the agency to fight imperialism, there was almost no talk of solidarity with Marxists and trade unionists in conflict zones like the Middle East and the Caucasus.

east against west… or class against class?

text of leaflet for the 6th september student stop the war meeting (from 3pm, birkbeck college, malet st, central london).

The recent Russian-Georgian war and the ensuing crisis in the Kremlin’s relations with the European Union and USA have little to do with the fate of South Ossetia. The territory and the 70,000 people who live there – a third of the population of Hackney – are merely an insignificant pawn in the current bout of great power rivalry. Although we have not yet seen an attack on Iran, conflict zones and fronts of tension are expanding at a canter.

iranian student activist anooshe azadbar imprisoned

 

HANDS OFF THE PEOPLE OF IRAN

PO Box 54631, London N16 8YE

W: http://www.hopoi.org E: office@hopoi.info

On September 4 at 11am, Anooshe Azadbar – overwhelming voted one of its honorary vice presidents by the British student union at its annual conference in April – was brought before a court in Iran. She faced multiple charges:

–        plotting against the Islamic regime

–        plotting against the Islamic order

–        acting against Iranian national interests with a left wing group