Thursday 25 June 2009

Did you know in Iran...

* During the past two weeks, millions of people have come out on to the streets of Tehran and other cities for freedom and an end to the Islamic regime in Iran.

* Their protests are not about the farce of an election; elections in Iran are neither fair nor free. There are no basic political freedoms and right to organise. Candidates are selected by the Supreme Leader and Guardian Council and are chosen from amongst pillars of the regime. Mousavi - now branded a ‘reformist’ - was prime minister during the 80s when thousands were executed.

* The ‘election’ is a pretext for people to come out with their own demands, including: ‘We want the prosecution of those who ordered and carried out the killings,’ ‘Free political prisoners,’ ‘Down with dictator,’ and 'Down with the Islamic regime.' The intensified factional infighting within the regime’s ruling class opens the space for them to do so.

* During the past two weeks, hundreds of protestors have been wounded or killed by the regime’s security forces, including 27 year old Neda Agha-Soltan who was shot in the chest on June 20. Many of the wounded have been dragged out of hospital beds and imprisoned.

* The protests are in opposition to thirty years of medievalism and cruelty. The regime stones people to death for ‘adultery,’ with the law even specifying the size of the stone to be used. Political opponents, labour activists and leaders, gays, and ‘apostates’ are executed. Iran has the highest number of child executions in the world. There is no right to strike. A woman’s testimony is worth half that of a man’s and women have limited rights to divorce and child custody. It imposes gender apartheid, segregating women in many public places like on buses. Veiling is compulsory and enforced by threats, fines and imprisonment…

Today, what you are seeing in Iran is an unfolding revolution that will bring the Islamic regime in Iran to its knees and break the back of the political Islamic movement internationally.

Now is the time for people in the west to show their solidarity with this movement, condemn the regime, and demand its political isolation and that its embassies be shut down.

Like racial apartheid in the former South Africa, a regime of gender apartheid must be proclaimed a crime against humanity.

On Friday, June 26, four global union organisations representing over 170 million workers have called a worldwide action day to demand justice for Iranian workers. Join those gathered in cities across the world to commemorate Neda and those killed in the past two weeks and show your solidarity with the people’s revolutionary movement in Iran. The future is ours.

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