The regime of crime and deceit must go

Message by Hamid Taqvaee, Leader of the Worker-communist Party of Iran, on the admission of the Islamic Republic of having shot down the Ukrainian passenger plane

The admission by the Islamic Republic that it has shot down the Ukrainian passenger plane demonstrated before the whole world the degree of mendacity, deceit and shamelessness of a criminal regime.  After three days of denial and peddling of lies, and once irrefutable evidence had been released by experts and states around the world, they were forced into an admission.  

 This was not just an admission of a horrific crime; it was also a confession to lying, deception and shamelessness by criminals who had failed in the cover-up of their crime.  This is not a human error, but the ‘error’ of a system that kills and denies; something they have been up to for forty years.

This is the last page in the dark record of a regime which from the very beginning of coming to power has maintained its hellish rule through crime, murder, lies and deception.  The people of Iran know this criminal regime very well.  The crimes of this regime, from the 1980s massacres to the state ‘serial murders’, to shooting protestors on the streets - the latest example being the massacre of around 1500 in the November 2019 protests - are known to all in Iran.  Now, with the catastrophe of shooting down a passenger plane, the depth of criminality, deception and shamelessness of the Islamic Republic becomes known to the people of the world too.  Now people around the world also understand, more than ever before, the legitimacy of the struggle of the people of Iran to free themselves from the menace of this criminal regime.  This scandal can and must be turned into a final blow to pull down this hated regime. 

The protests have already begun.  Hundreds of people have come out on the streets of Tehran chanting ‘We didn’t give up those lives so as to compromise and worship the Leader’ and ‘So many years of crime, death to this regime’.   Shamed and disgraced, the Islamic Republic has ended up in a most feeble and fragile state. Let us come out on the streets in a solid and united rank and turn the vigils and commemoration of the victims of the plane crash into a powerful wave of protest against the entirety of this system of lies and murder. 

In memory of the victims of the plane tragedy and the November 2019 uprising!

Down with the criminal Islamic Republic of Iran!

Hamid Taqvaee

11 January 2020

Iran: The countdown for the overthrow of the ruling assassins has begun

 

The massive uprising which for ten days, from mid-November, drove the Islamic Republic to its death throes was a big step forward and a game changer in the movement of the people of Iran for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. The uprising started in protest at the petrol price rises, by people stopping their cars and blocking the roads. However, the security forces responded by firing on the people. The regime wanted to forestall the uprising by brutally crushing the protests it was anticipating and for which it had prepared its special units and anti-riot forces. However, shooting at the people did not intimidate them. The vicious plan which the ruling criminals call ‘shock therapy’ shocked the regime itself. People not only did not go back to their homes, but took the battle to the neighbourhoods, meting out severe punishment on many of the regime’s thugs. The Minister for Home Affairs admits that ‘over 50 military bases and police stations were attacked’ and ‘the number of security forces injured was twice that for the protesters’.

The angry youth’s direct action and offensive, reflecting the hatred of millions of people towards the Islamic Republic, was indeed the direct action of an enraged people to topple the regime. The November uprising is another step in the advance of the people’s movement for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. The 2009 revolutionary surge ended with an uprising, and the November 2019 surge started with an uprising. The 2017/18 revolutionary rising declared ‘the end of the game’; the November 2019 rising set about to practically end it.

During the November uprising, petrol stations, Friday Prayer Imams’ offices, the seminaries and other Islamic centres, police stations, the bases of the regime’s paramilitary Baseej thugs, Khomeini’s and Khamenei’s posters and the Islamic regime’s flags, and hundreds of banks, were set on fire. However, this mass assault on state institutions and the symbols of repression, plunder and pillage was not a blind rebellion. It was the offensive of a society that for long has risen up against poverty, rising prices, corruption, embezzlement, rip-off, lack of rights, repression and the hateful rule of Islam on the laws and on the social and private lives of the people.

The November uprising took place in the context of widespread strikes and protests which, especially over the past two years, have been raising the heat under the feet of the ruling criminals. The uninterrupted agitation and simmering which led to the November eruption included strikes by Haft Tappeh sugar cane workers, Ahvaz steelworkers, Hepco heavy equipment workers, AzarAb Industries workers, truck drivers, rail workers, Mahshahr Petrochemical workers, and workers in hundreds of other factories and workplaces, as well as the nationwide strikes and rallies by teachers and pensioners, the protests against compulsory hijab and gender apartheid by the Girls of Revolution Street, such as by Vida Movahed and Sahar Khodayari, the protest, even from within prisons, against torture and detention and for the release of political prisoners, the general strike in Iranian Kurdistan, and so on. For its part, the November uprising is paving the way for the advance of the protests in all these fields, putting the whole society in a more militant and offensive position in the fight against the criminal rulers.

The November uprising has completely transformed the political situation and the protest climate in Iran in favour of people’s movement for the overthrow of the regime and to the disadvantage of the regime. The Islamic Republic has now clearly been driven to the status of an occupying state, which, like the Nazi regime in Poland and France, can only maintain its hateful rule by an undeclared martial law and with the help of tanks, armoured vehicles and by its hordes of thugs shooting at the people. The so-called shock therapy of the murderous rulers is no less than Pinochet’s, but Iran today is not Chile under Pinochet. Even the pen pushers and mouthpieces of the regime warn that the earth-shattering uprising that started in November has no intention of coming to a halt.

The people’s movement to overthrow the regime has now added ‘control of neighbourhoods’ to its armoury of mass war, and by attacking the security forces, religious centres and banks, as the symbols of the kleptocratic capitalism in place, has declared an unremitting and uncompromising war on the entire political and economic system. The November uprising also introduced arms, and the legitimacy of using arms against the ruling assassins, into the protest culture and discourse of the society. Also, by the method of hit-and-run and taking control of the neighbourhoods, it demonstrated an effective tactic in confronting the ruling fascists. The time for an armed uprising and for dealing the final blow on the regime has not yet come, but that day is not far away.

With the November uprising, the new movement for the control of neighbourhoods also announced its powerful presence. This movement has taken the first steps towards organising local units and councils of struggle. Local councils of struggle can and must be expanded and promoted into a co-ordinated and integrated network of struggle in all neighbourhoods.

The November uprising not only let the society experience and rehearse armed insurrection, but it also paved the way for more offensive and radical strikes, gatherings and demonstrations. It now rests with the protest activists, figures and organisations in the workers’ movement and in other protest movements to come forward powerfully to challenge the murderous regime from all sides by issuing hard-hitting statements, indictments and calls, by organising nationwide strikes, protests and rallies and by building local councils of struggle. At the forefront of this battle lies the organisation of a powerful nationwide protest against the regime’s crimes, the brutal killing of the protestors and the mass arrests during of the recent uprising.

The Worker-communist Party of Iran calls on the activists of the workers’ movement and other protest movements and on masses of the people to protest against the killing of the November protesters and to fight for the release of all those arrested.

The countdown for the overthrow of the ruling assassins has begun. Today not only in Iran, but also in Lebanon and Iraq, people have come out against the Islamic Republic and the criminal governments and gangs who are supported by the ISIS in power in Iran. The day is not far away when with nationwide strikes and massive demonstrations, with unrelenting battles in every district, street and neighbourhood and with the final insurrection and blow on the bases of the regime’s repressive forces and centres of power, we will overthrow the Islamic Republic and free Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and the entire region from the menace of the ruling assassins in Iran. Victory is ours.

Worker-communist Party of Iran

29 November 2019

Update Iran

> It is estimated that around 370 people were killed by the regime's forces in the protests that started on 15th of November

> The families of those killed have either not been given the bodies of their loved ones, have been made to pay to get the bodies and have been told that they could only get the bodies if they will only hold a very small ceremony (no publicity), not talk to the media, no interviews. The regime is petrified that the funerals of those killed and public statements by family members could lead to more protests. However some of the families are speaking out.

> According to some reports there were around a thousand people gathered in front of the forensic medical centre in Tehran, people demanding the bodies of their loved ones.

> An estimated 7000 to 10000 people have been detained by the regime during the protests. Reports come out that most of them are held in makeshift detention centres, that there are being tortured and mistreated and that the facilities are absolutely inadequate

> The regime has said that those in the protest may be exexuted

> There are people gathering in front of prisons in the province of Khuzestan, demanding to know about the whereabouts of their loved ones

> There were protests in 28 out of the 30 provinces in Iran

>Since the tripling of the price of petrol on 15th of December, the price of other goods and services has also risen sharply

#Iran #IranProtest #IranProtests #protest

Protests against the Islamic regime of Iran

There have been many protests in support of the protesters in Iran and agaisnst the Islamic regime over the last week.

Here are scenes from Toronto, Vancouver, Stockholm, Cologne, Frankfurt, Hannover, Berlin, Malmo

The Protests will turn into an all-encompassing Revolution

The Islamic Republic, who has implemented an undeclared martial law, shutting down the Internet, killing hundreds and arresting thousands of protesters, claims that the protests are over. But the very nature of these recent crimes shows that the revolution to overthrow the Islamic regime must and will continue. The Islamic Republic is a state of plunder, robbery, corruption, reaction, and crime and should be done away with. 

The masses of deprived and exasperated people, the workers, teachers, retirees, women and the youth of this country are determined to dispel the Islamic nightmare and to do so they continue to protest boldly and in spite of the crimes of the regime’s armed mercenaries.

The people do not want to live below the poverty line and under the rule of the capitalist mafia. The Iranian people do not want to live under the yoke of the thieves and the murderers. The Iranian people do not want insecurity, reactionism and superstition rule over their lives.

The recent protests began over an increase in the price of petrol, but as in the revolutionary uprisings of the 2009 summer and the 2017 winter, the slogans of “Down with the Dictator” and “Down with the Islamic Republic” soon dominated the protests. There were clashes with the regime’s mercenaries everywhere. People took control of neighbourhoods and did not allow the regime’s mercenaries to enter.

The day will come soon when the revolutionary people will sweep away the entirety of the regime together with its judiciary, legislature, police, Revolutionary Guards, paramilitary Basij, its religious seminaries and the totality of the Islamic collusion. The Islamic Republic has confronted the people with tanks, prisons and its criminals; the people will respond with nationwide strikes and protests. The overthrow of this despicable and reactionary regime is inevitable. 

The struggle against the Islamic Republic continues in many areas and cities; nationwide strikes and protests will be the extension of this struggle and will continue until the Islamic Republic is finally eliminated. The countdown for the toppling of the Islamic Republic has begun.

Long live the humane revolution for a humane society!

Long live the Socialist Republic!

Worker-communist Party of Iran

November 22, 2019

200 protestors killed, over 3000 injured and several thousand detained in Iran

 

According to reports from Iran, the security forces have so far killed more than 200 protestors and injured more than 3000. Several thousand have been arrested and detained. The regime has threatened to execute those who were arrested during the demonstrations. In the province of Kurdistan the Revolutionary Guards have ordered the hospitals not to treat those injured at the demonstrations.

In Shiraz, army tanks patrol the streets. Three tanks were also seen on the streets of Mahshahr three days ago. This shows the strength of the people’s struggle. The Islamic Republic has used all of its oppressive forces but has not been able to repress the uprising. Hence, it has brought its armoured vehicles onto the streets.

In the Afsariyeh neighbourhood, in the south-east of Tehran, the demonstrations continued through the night and the people clashed with the security forces. In Sattarkhan Street, in the west of Tehran, the demonstrators - with women on the front lines - clashed with the police and pushed them back.

In the cities of Doroud and Khorramabad the demonstrators attacked several government buildings.

Demonstrations and clashes with the security forces continue in Isfahan. It has been reported that in Eslamshahr one Revolutionary Guard and a Basiji were killed during the clashes with the protestors. In Fereydounshahr, in the province of Isfahan, the Revolutionary Guards raided hospitals and kidnapped the corpses of dead and injured protestors.

Protests continue in Marivan; the death toll is high in this city. All shops are closed; the people have taken control of some neighbourhoods and do not let security forces enter. In Javanroud the people have pushed back the security forces. In Kermanshah, the security forces demand 500 million Tomans in order to hand over the bodies of the killed to their families.

Demonstrations and protests continue in Ahvaz and Khorramshahr. 17 have been reported killed by the security forces in Mahshahr. People continue their protests despite the atrocities of the security forces. In the city of Asalouyeh, petro-chemical complexes and refineries are closed due to road blockages. The Haft Tappeh Sugar Cane workers and the Polyethylene Petro-Chemistry workers continue their strikes. In the cities of Ahvaz, Shush, Behbahan, Khorramshahr and Omidiyeh, the families of the detainees continue their protests in front of the prisons. Families of those who were killed also protest in front of the forensic medical centre. At least 35 have been reported dead in these cities.

The Internet shutdown continues; the regime is trying to prevent people from communicating with each other and contacting the opposition abroad in order to hide the extent of its atrocities and barbarity. Some governors have said publicly that they are not allowed to reveal the number of the dead.

We call upon human rights, workers’ rights, and women’s rights organizations and unions worldwide and the international community to strongly condemn the crimes of the Islamic regime, to put pressure on the Islamic Republic and to support the people in Iran who fight for freedom, equality and a prosperous, humane society. We call on the international public to join the demonstrations that are being organized abroad in solidarity with the people in Iran.

Worker-communist Party of Iran

20 November 2019

The Protests and the Uprising in Iran continue with greater intensity

On 15^th of November 2019, the price of petrol in Iran was raised drastically. The rationed petrol price was increased by 50% while the price of non-rationed petrol was tripled. The Islamic regime in Iran claims that the petrol price increase would be beneficial to the people. However, the people in Iran, the majority of whom suffers from acute poverty, took to the streets in large numbers to protest the price increase. The first peaceful demonstrations that quickly turned into a violent uprising owing to the brutal attack of the special forces on demonstrators, took place in Isfahan, Shiraz, Bandar Abbas, Karaj, Ahvaz, Gatvand, Mahshahr, Behbahan, Khorramshar and several other cities.

Eventually, the protests intensified and expanded to more than twenty cities and the slogans turned more radical and political. People chanted “Down with the Dictator” (meaning the supreme leader Khamenei), “Don’t be Scared, We are all United”, “Shame on you Dictator, Leave the Country Alone”, “Mullahs Should Get Lost”, “The Price of Gas Increases, The Poor become Poorer”.

On the second day of the uprising, people in cities such as Tabriz and Kermanshah clashed with the security forces and the special police. On November 16, the fuel tanker drivers in the province of Khuzestan went on strike in support of the protestors. The same day, people succeeded in taking control of several districts and boroughs in cities such as Abadan, Ahvaz, Behbahan, Khorramshahr and Omidiyeh and prevented the police and the Special Forces from entering the cities and neighbourhoods. The same day, students in several cities joined the protests. Students of the Free University of Gohardasht in Karaj took to the streets while chanting “Our People is Rebellious, Has Had Enough of Slavery”. This slogan in fact reveals the radical leftist emancipatory potential of the uprising as it not only aims at the Islamic Republic, but also the capitalist relations of production that are guarded by the Islamic regime in Iran. On the same day, the students of the University of Urmia also joined the uprising. In a communique that was issued the same day by the Worker-communist Party of Iran, people were called upon to form their committees and councils in order to take control of boroughs, districts and cities.

November 16, is also the day that the people in Isfahan’s Zeynabiyeh district set the Howza-ye Elmiye (the common name of the vocational school were mullahs are trained) on fire. In the town of Andisheh, people occupied the paramilitary Basij’s station. In Tabriz, several stations of the security forces were set on fire. In Vaeen a precinct was set on fire while in Ghale Hassan-Khan, a borough of the city of Quds, the protestors burned down the governor’s building. In Aryashahr, a district in the west of Tehran, people took to the streets chanting slogans such as “Down with Khamenei” and “Enough with the Islam with which you have made people miserable”.

Within the first two days of the protests, twenty eight people, including a twelve-year-old child, were killed by the security forces of the regime.

The protests accelerated and the number of participants rose drastically on November 17. The protests turned also more radical, which is visible in the slogans the protestors chanted. In several districts of Tehran and Mashhad the protests continued well into the night with people chanting “We Don’t Want the Islamic Republic”, “Down with Khamenei” and “Down with the Dictator”. On Azadi Square in the city of Mashhad, people destroyed an armoured vehicle that belonged to the Special Forces. In the city of Khorramshahr, people set the governor’s office and several other government buildings on fire. In Karaj, people set at last 15 banks and police stations on fire and burned the flag of the Islamic regime. In the Tehran borough of Robat-Karim a gas station, in the district of Tehran-Pars a bank, and in the city of Quds the governor’s building and a number of banks were set on fire. Protestors burned down a police station in the Mali-abad district of Shiraz.

On the same day, the Islamic Republic, fearing that the protests would spread even wider and a potential general strike, closed down schools for two days allegedly due to severe weather conditions and heavy traffic.

17^th of November was also the day that the students of the University of Tehran, the University of Tabriz, the University of Isfahan, the University of Urmia and the University of Sanandaj joined the ranks of the protestors. In Tehran the students chanted “Petroleum Money is Used to Finance the Basij”, “Workers and Students, Stand Side by Side in the Fight”, “Gas Price Increases, the Poor become Poorer”, “Free Political Prisoners”, “Down with the Dictator”, “People Live in Misery, the Master (Khamenei) Lives Like a God” and “Hardliner, Reformist, This is the end of your Stories”.

According to official statements, more than a thousand people were arrested and detained until November 17. On November 18, however, the families of the detainees gathered in front of prisons in Ahvaz and Behbahan demanding the immediate release of their loved ones. The families were also accompanied by other people.

On November 18, workers of the Polyethylene Petro-chemistry Complex of Mahshahr went on strike protesting the costliness of living expenses and poor working conditions. Meanwhile, it was reported that trucks that carry loads from and to the Complex were stopped by the protestors and their loads confiscated by the people. The fuel tanker drivers’ strike continued. The regime tried to use trucks that belong to the Revolutionary Guards (Pasdaran) to transport fuel but it was reported that they did not succeed as they were prevented from doing so by the people.

It has also been reported that on November19, despite all the threats of the regime, the workers of the Haft-Tappeh Sugar Cane Complex went on strike and marched toward the governor’s office. People joined the workers’ protests and many women were on the frontline of the march. In Mahshahr, the regime brought its military forces and tanks into the streets. However, the people were not intimidated and the protests continue in this city too. The protestors also attacked the Howza-ye Elmiyah and the offices of the Friday prayer Imams and set them on fire in Kazerun, Ahvaz, Shiraz, Isfahan and several other cities. This shows the depth of the people’s hatred towards the Islamic regime and Islamic rule.

In the face of the uprising, the regime panicked and has had several emergency meetings. The regime has shut down the Internet in order to prevent people from communicating the news of the protests; they have also blocked telephone lines. But the uprising continues with greater intensity and momentum and the protests have spread to more than one hundred cities as of today, November 19.

Schools and universities are closed until November 23, in Tehran and many other cities, and premier league football matches have been suspended. Despite all the atrocious and barbaric acts of the Islamic Republic that so far have claimed the life of hundreds of protestors, the people won’t budge and they are continuing their revolutionary movement to topple the Islamic regime. This uprising is the prologue to a massive social revolution that will end the Islamic Republic and will create a secular, free, equal and humane society.

Long Live Prosperity, Freedom, Equality!

Long Live Socialism!

The Worker-communist Party of Iran

November 19, 2019

 

Atena Daemi, hope for many in Iran, must be freed!

Atena Daemi is known as an Iranian anti-execution campaigner and many, among them Amnesty International, are calling for her release. Fighting against executions is just one part of Atena’s work however; there is a lot more to her and the reasons why she has been subjected to the worst of ill-treatments by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Atena Daemi stands for life and humanity – the total opposite of the Islamic regime’s core essence, inhumanity and injustice. She is a children's rights, a women's rights and an anti-execution campaigner. She fights for the rights of the first and most vulnerable victims of the Islamic regime and for the life of those who are condemned to execution.

She keeps writing even in prison under the harshest conditions, and inspires many to fight for humanity.

Atena Daemi’s father was with her when she was sentenced in the Islamic regime’s court of injustice. Her father Hosein Daemi wrote:

I'll never forget when they brought Atena to court.

Judge Moghiseh told her: Are you against execution?

Atena: Yes, I am against execution.

Moghiseh: It's none of your business, we execute whoever we want. And those “human rights people” can't stop us.

Atena: One day you will have to answer for those innocent people you hang, and that day is coming soon.

Moghiseh expelled Atena from the courtroom and sentenced her to 14 years in prison.

Atena Daemi was arrested in October 2014.

She spent the first 86 days in solitary confinement.

She was moved to Evin prison on 18^th January 2015.

She was sentenced on 14^th March 2015 to 14 years for ‘propaganda against the regime, conspiracy against national security, insulting the leader of the regime, insulting Khomeini, and concealing evidence.’

Interrogations, accusations, court of injustice, solitary confinement, torture, long prison sentence, harassment and arrest of her family members, persecution, and more torture for Atena Daemi because she points out the problem, the Islamic regime and its inhumanity, and proposes the solution, humanity.

In addition to campaigning against execution and for women's rights, Atena is a passionate defender of children's rights. This is what she wants to change:

In Iran

• over 10,000 infants die every year as a direct consequence of poverty
• over 7,500,000 children are excluded from school
• over 500,000 Afghan children are denied education
• over 287,000 children are married off – the Islamic regime's law allows it
• over 5,000,000 children live on the deprived and unsafe margins of cities
• Tens of thousands are exposed to drugs. 1189 children were treated for overdoses in 2015
• 71 children are awaiting execution in Iran
• 1500 children live with their mothers in prison
• 90% of children in government care are sexually abused
• 26,909 cases of domestic abuse against children were reported in 2015
• 57% of schools in Iran are unsafe

These statistics are from the regime's census; the reality is disastrous. Tens of thousands of children are homeless and face all sorts of dangers including rape, exploitation in the drug trade, being victims of the body parts trade, everyday humiliation, and hunger.

It's for her uncompromising defence of the lives of the deprived and bringing hope to them that she is subjected to the most inhuman treatment. Atena Daemi is treated so cruelly because of what she stands for: bringing moments of happiness to children who are deprived of love, who are destitute, forced to work, forced to marry, forced out of schools because they are poor or foreigners, forced to live in slums.

The hope for change that Atena brings to society disarms the regime which has remained in power by taking away hope and terrorising society with executions and the imposition of brutal poverty.

There are no numbers or words to adequately reflect the “depth of the inhumanity”, but there are people like Atena who risk their life to change the life of just one child if they can. The ones who endure torture, solitary confinement, immense pressure and whose messages from behind bars are all about “passion for humanity” and “a better world for children”.

The enmity of the Islamic regime of Iran against Atena and other rights activists is because of what they bring to society: the hope of freedom from ’gender apartheid’ and its rules, the smile on a child's face and the experience of love. That experience of compassion by those who are not supposed to know about kindness and love shakes the foundation of the Islamic Republic. How can the Islamic regime secure its future, its ideology and its rules, if people experience humanity and find hope?

Atena Daemi stands for the humanity that we all share and the ideals we all hold dearly. We call on all international humanitarian organisations and workers' organisations to demand the immediate and unconditional release of Atena Daemi.

Worker-communist Party of Iran

18 December 2018

People of Ahvaz, steelworkers have called on you for support

Respond to their legitimate call!

People of Ahvaz. For over three weeks now, you have followed the solid and united protest of the steelworkers on the streets of Ahvaz against poverty, oppression and injustice. You've heard their vibrant chants against the thieves and the parasites.

Leaders of the workers say: “We are one body and stand as strong as steel to get our rights. The time when we were treated like slaves is over. We stand our ground until we make our demands a reality!”

Undoubtedly, all of you who are fed up with the current misery have heard the encouraging and enthusiastic words of the steelworkers’ leaders. This fight is over unpaid wages, restart of the production lines and elimination of the threat of job losses that looms over 4000 workers and their families; this is a fight in defence of workers of Haft Tapeh and for the release of the detained workers; this is a fight against poverty, high prices, oppression and lack of rights.

This fight has paved the battleground for all of you, for teachers, for retirees, for unemployed youth, for women and for all of you who are tried of the current situation in Iran. Surely you do know that and stand by the workers, as you've been doing by attending their protests; but you can play a much bigger role in this struggle. Leaders of the workers ask for your support and to take action.

We, too, along with the leaders of the steel workers, call on teachers, petrochemical workers, university students, youth, women and all the oppressed people to actively, in any way you can, support the steel workers. Support the workers and strengthen their ranks against a bunch of parasites.

Join the steel workers and their families and fight for the release of the imprisoned workers of Haft Tapeh, while voicing your own legitimate demands.

There are many more strikes that are going on in Ahvaz right now; all the strikes should be synchronised and a united strike organised across the whole city.

The city of Ahvaz must stand up as one body and show undivided solidarity with the striking workers to push back the oppressors.

The power of the parasites and their repressive forces is shrinking day by day, and you have the power to put them in their place, and, thus, just like the steelworkers and sugar cane workers, set an example of unity and solidarity for the whole society.

Asqar Karimi

On behalf of the Worker-communist Party of Iran (WPI)

2 December 2018

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Asqar Karimi is the head of WPI’s Executive Board

Hamid Taqvaee’s message to sugar cane workers of Haft Tapeh and steelworkers of Ahvaz, Iran

I send my greetings to you militant workers of Haft Tapeh and the steelworkers of Ahvaz. Your steadfast strike and struggles echo the demands and sentiments of all the workers and people of Iran. The methods of your struggle are methods that can become a blueprint for all the workers and people of Iran. You are demanding the payment of unpaid wages, you have come out against poverty and corruption, you are calling for workers to get organised and take over the running of their affairs. These are the sentiments of the people of Iran, the sentiments of the working class in Iran.

The methods of your struggle can become a model for all workers and various protest movements in society. Your families have joined your struggles and doubly strengthened your fight. By holding general assemblies and organising your struggle on a workers’ council basis, in my view you have taken a huge step forward; you have raised the banner of workers’ councils and have demanded the direct exercise of the will of workers through their council. This is a demand, slogan and aim of the whole workers’ movement and the people in Iran engaged in protest.

On the other hand, the unity and solidarity that you have shown between the two sectors of workers, i.e. the steelworkers in Ahvaz and the sugar cane workers in Haft Tapeh, if not unprecedented, is exceptional in the history of the workers’ movement in Iran. It is over three weeks, nearly a month, now that two important sectors of workers have been on strike and during your strike you have come out united and in solidarity with each other and in support of each other’s demands, slogans and struggle. This solidarity can be widened to include larger sections of the working class in Iran.

The government, faced with this powerful wave of your struggle, has no choice other than, like always, to resort to threats, repression and prison. But, as you have said in your slogans, even threats, repression and prison have no effect, and have only led to the strengthening of your struggle.

It has been reported that Ali Nejati [the head of the union of sugar cane workers] and also his son Peyman Nejati have been arrested, while their house was raided and they were brutally beaten up. It has also been reported that Esmail Bakhshi [a popular leader and representative of the sugar cane workers] has been subjected to torture and physical abuse in prison. This outrage should be answered firmly, and we should stand up to these savages, demanding the immediate release of Esmail Bakhshi, Sepideh Gholiyan, Ali Nejati and Peyman Nejati; an urgent demand that should be forced onto the government. Up to this point, your struggle and the demand for the release of Bakhshi has given rise to a huge wave of support, both in Iran and internationally. Workers’ organisations, workers’ rights personalities, writers, students, retired workers, teachers and civil rights activists and figures have started petitions and issued statements and held protest gatherings to call for the immediate release of Bakhshi, and actively supported your struggle.

Also, internationally, many trade unions, in Europe and Canada, have called for the release of Bakhshi and supported your struggles. This wave of support must be extended further, and the Islamic Republic forced to release Esmail Bakhshi, Ali Nejati, Peyman Nejati and Sepideh Gholiyan immediately and unconditionally. This fight must be continued until the release of all jailed workers and all political prisoners in Iran. In the hope of victory and success!

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Hamid Taqvaee is the leader of the Worker-communist Party of Iran (WPI) 

This is the English transcript of Hamid Taqvaee's video message in Farsi

Please note: Peyman Nejati have been released in the meantime

To: Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party

7 January 2018

Dear Mr Corbyn

In solidarity with the heroic struggle of the people of Iran against one of the most despotic, brutal, anti-working class and misogynistic regimes in the world, and on behalf of the largest working-class party of the left opposition in Iran, I am writing to ask you to distance yourself immediately from the disgraceful comments made yesterday by the Shadow Foreign Secretary, Emily Thornberry. I am asking you to break your silence and to come out unreservedly on the side of the people in Iran in their heroic struggle against their oppressors.

Siding with the oppressors of the people or even staying silent or prevaricating on the rightful protests by the workers, women and the youth in Iran against the corrupt and reactionary Islamic Republic, whose leaders have amassed billions, while subjecting workers to abject poverty, smashing workers’ organisations, throwing trade unionists to jail, committing state-sanctioned discrimination and violence against women and LGBT people and executing dissidents in their tens of thousands, would be a grave political folly for the Labour Party. Once this regime is overthrown by the ongoing heroic rising of the people, the people of Iran will not forget who was on their side and who sided with their oppressors.

Your declared aims of fighting for a better world, for economic equality and for social justice won you great following among millions of people in Britain and internationally, who enthusiastically supported you in your leadership campaigns and in the 2017 general election on a progressive platform to address the widening inequality and the growing injustice in the UK.

However, these are exactly the same issues - on a far harsher and more brutal scale - that have brought millions of people onto to the streets of Iran today. The workers, women and youth in Iran are protesting against grotesque levels of inequality, lack of basic political and social freedoms and a medieval religious dictatorship that is an affront to the collective conscience of humanity in the 21^st Century. People in Iran do not want the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the 1% and the billionaire clergy while they try to survive on a minimum wage that is one-fourth of the official poverty line. They do not want the vile state discrimination against women, which officially defines them as minors and the property of their male guardians; they do not want compulsory veiling and gender apartheid. They do not want the imposition of a religious state and religious thought. In one word, the people of Iran do not want the Islamic Republic. They have risen up against the Islamic Republic because they want economic equality and political and social freedoms. They want a better world and a life worthy of human beings. They are right to demand this, and should have the people of the world’s unreserved support.

Siding with such an obnoxious regime and disgracefully declaring, as Emily Thornberry has, that it is not clear who is right or wrong in this struggle of the oppressed against their oppressors will forever stay in the memory of the people of Iran. It will seriously harm the credentials of a progressive and egalitarian party that you are trying to build. It will disillusion millions of your supporters who rushed to your support precisely because they believe in equality and social justice everywhere. It will alienate your grassroots from the leadership, and mark a shameful moment in the life of your new party. It will be an irredeemable political folly and a historic moral disgrace for the Labour Party.

I hope the utterances of Emily Thornberry were an isolated case, which she will come to regret and openly apologies for. In any case, I urge you, as the Leader of the Labour Party, to distance yourself in the clearest terms from those comments and to come out unreservedly and unambiguously on the side of the people of Iran in these momentous days.

Hamid Taqvaee,

Leader of the Worker-communist Party of Iran