Iran

Iran: what revolution?

On 22 October, the Saturday afternoon Iran solidarity protests at Trafalgar Square, London, were more dominated by royalist flags than previous Saturdays. Iranian leftists demonstrate separately, by the National Gallery, and by no means all in the royalist-flag crowd are royalists; but this week the discourse of “43 years” of oppression (as if all was OK under the Shah) dominated. One of the slogans on the royalist-dominated sound system was “One solution, revolution”. That shows us how empty that slogan (used at one time by the SWP, and more recently Socialist Appeal) is. The socialist task...

Unveil Iran!

Azar Majedi, an exiled Iranian women’s rights activist and revolutionary socialist, discusses the revolt in Iran. Iran once again has become the scene of revolt, protest and bloodshed. Even though protests are nothing new in Iran, this time there is a marked difference in the protest movements occupying the streets of many cities and towns in Iran. As the mood, expression of revolt and the slogans have changed, so has the narrative of the mainstream media in the west. Up to now, any time people took to the street, we heard the narrative that people in Iran do not want an overthrow, they just...

Iran rises up for women's rights

Dozens have been killed, hundreds injured and thousands arrested in the mass protests sweeping Iran since 17 September, following the killing of 22 year old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini by the “morality police”. One underground socialist workers’ group described developments as the “biggest protest event in the history of four decades of the Islamic Republic’s repression”. It may well be the most powerful of many challenges to the Islamist regime since it confiscated and destroyed the Iranian revolution in 1978-79 . On 13 September Mahsa Amini, visiting Tehran with her family, was arrested for...

Women’s lives matter: protests sweep Iran after police kill Mahsa Amini for how she was dressed

Protests have been taking place in many parts of Iran since 17 September, after the “morality police” killed a young Kurdish woman for failing to comply with rules on how women should be dressed. 22 year old Mahsa Amini (Kurdish name Jina Amini) was travelling with her family from Iranian Kurdistan when she was arrested, reportedly because she was not wearing her hijab and trousers correctly. Witnesses have suggested she was beaten even in the police van. Amini's family were told she would be released after a “re-education session”. They were then notified she was in an intensive care unit in...

Thirty years since The Satanic Verses

Last month [September 2018] saw the thirtieth anniversary of the publication of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses . Rushdie’s sprawling novel defies summary: interlinking stories meld scurrilous fantasies, dark humour and cutting political satire directed not only at Islam, but British racism and Indian immigrants’ attempts to adapt. It is an honest attempt to deal with the warping pressures of racism, religion and cultural dislocation. When it was published in September 1988 there was no spontaneous grassroots opposition. According to Kenan Malik in From Fatwa to Jihad , one early move...

Kino Eye: Iranian film directors jailed

Mohammad Rasoulof (recent winner of the Golden Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival) and Mostafa Al-Ahmad, two internationally known Iranian film directors, have been arrested after posting an online appeal to the Iranian security services, urging them not to use their weapons against demonstrators. Another film director, Jafar Panahi, who went to the police to complain about the arrests, was himself arrested. The whereabouts of all three are currently not known. This follows hard on the heels of the arrests of two documentary film-makers, Mina Keshavarz and Firouzeh Khosravani in May this...

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is free. What about Sepideh Gholian?

There has been very extensive coverage in the mainstream media of the return home of British-Iranian charity worker Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, held in prison in Iran for six years. We do not have a lot to add, except to remind people of the Tory government’s – and particularly Boris Johnson’s – previous seeming indifference to getting Zaghari-Ratcliffe freed; and the fact that capitalist governments suddenly find all kinds of things possible when they feel it is necessary for the interests of the class they represent. The context here is surely a desire for thaw with Iran, a major oil-producer...

Free Sepideh Gholian!

The Iranian authorities keep promising her family they’ll allow medical leave for Sepideh Gholian, but then refusing at the last minute. Sepideh, a 27 year old Iranian activist and journalist, was imprisoned in 2018 for reporting on and supporting the Haft Tappeh sugarcane workers’ strike . She has been beaten up and tortured in the regime’s dungeons. Now she is suffering from gastric bleeding, has Covid, and has been denied real medical treatment. Her life is in danger. Send messages of solidarity via the Shahrokh Zamani Action Campaign : email to shahrokhlives@gmail.com . Tweet messages...

Free Sepideh Gholian!

From the Shahrokh Zamani Action Committee Sepideh Gholian — a student, social rights’ activist and journalist imprisoned in Bushehr Prison, in Iran — has had stomach bleeding. She now has Covid-19, her condition is deteriorating, her life is in danger, and she has had no medical treatment. The prison authorities have refused to release her and her family’s repeated requests for a visit have been ignored. Sepideh Gholian was arrested on 18 November 2018 while supporting and reporting on the strike of the Haft Tappeh Sugar Cane workers. • Messages to shahrokhlives@gmail.com • More: here

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