Iran

Esmail Bakhshi, a leader of the Haft Tappeh sugar cane workers in Iran, and Sepideh Gholian, an activist who supported the workers’ dispute, have been released from jail.

They were sentenced in September – to 14 years and 18 years respectively — on all sorts of trumped up charges, including endangering “national security” and “the Islamic system”.

Because they put up resistance while in jail, Sepideh’s brother was arrested in January and Esmail’s mother in February! Then in August Sepideh’s defence lawyer was threatened with arrest.

Now they have temporary releases on the basis of eye-watering

Boris Johnson, on a visit to the USA, has offered to go in with US Donald Trump in a military attack on Iran.

“The Americans are proposing to do more to help to defend Saudi Arabia, and we will be following that closely.

“And clearly, if we are asked, either by the Saudis or by the Americans, to have a role then we will consider what way we could be useful.”

He was asked whether that meant UK military force. “We will consider in what way we can be useful, if asked, depending on what the exact plan is”.

Johnson has also aligned with Trump on the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, saying he wants “a

Seven workers and activists from the Haft Tappeh sugar-cane complex in Iran have been sentenced to a total of 110 years in prison and 74 lashes after the industrial action there last year.

Branch 28 of the regime’s so-called Revolutionary Court has passed the following sentences:

Esmail Bakhshi, Haft Tappeh worker and workers’ rep: 14 years in prison.
Sepideh Gholian, journalist and student: 18 years.
Amir-Hossein Mohammadi-Fard, journalist: 18 years.
Asal Mohammadi, journalist: 18 years.
Sanaz Alahyari, journalist: 18 years.
Amir Amirgholi, journalist: 18 years.
Mohammad Khanifar, Haft Tappeh

Workers’ struggles and political prisoners in Iran, with Morad Shirin (Iranian Revolutionary Marxists’ Tendency) and Azar Majedi (Worker-Communist Party of Iran - Hekmatist) - at Ideas for Freedom 2019

Reposted from Azer Majedi's channel here

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Morad Shirin (Solidarity 511) has casually speculated that Israel (or, perhaps, another regional power allied to the USA, but no other state is thought worthy of mention) is probably responsible for the attacks on the Norwegian and Japanese oil tankers.

No evidence is offered, but rather a Galloway-style deduction based on which state would benefit from the most obvious suspect being punished. It isn’t often, thankfully, that this type of argument is promoted in the pages of Solidarity.

“We have to ask: ‘Which state is going to benefit from delaying, or maybe even preventing, a deal?’ That

Clearly the attacks on Norwegian and Japanese tankers off the Gulf of Oman on Thursday 14 June increase the risk of a miscalculation leading to military clashes in the region. However, these attacks were probably not carried out by any of the Iranian regime’s armed forces, not even the Pasdaran or a section of the Pasdaran (though that can’t be completely ruled out).

In order to assess them correctly we shouldn’t just zoom in on their level of sophistication but also follow up other factors, especially their political and diplomatic purpose. We have to ask: “Which state is going to benefit

The US is applying pressure to get the Iranian regime to give more concessions.

As long as something doesn’t go wrong, that is precisely what will happen: the regime will give ground after making a show of being defiant. Things are more complicated than before because the US has people like John Bolton, the National Security Adviser, in charge of this policy.

Generally speaking, the US government is not intending to go to war. But obviously the more their military presence in the Gulf increases, the more miscalculations become likely. In any event, the worst scenario would be small

Following a call by four independent labour organisations, Trade Union of the Tehran and Suburbs Vahed Bus Company, Haft Tappeh Sugar Cane Workers’ Union, Coordination Committee for Establishing Labour Organisations and the Retirement Alliance, workers, teachers, students and pensioners demonstrated outside the Iranian regime’s "parliament" on May Day.

The regime’s response was to arrest a large number of demonstrators.

The Shahrokh Zamani Action Campaign strongly condemns these arrests. We call on all trade unionists, socialists and other political activists to help us in defending the

Marieme Helie Lucas, an Algerian socialist feminist, has written this open letter: to people of good will, solidarising with victims of the Christchurch massacre; to the New Zealand Prime Minister; and to the management of Mount Royal University, Calgary, Canada.

In response to massacres perpetrated by extreme-right white supremacists in two mosques in New Zealand on 15 March 2019, several symbolic actions took place that aimed at conveying to Muslims — who were attacked as such, since they were praying in the mosque when it happened – that they could count on their fellow citizens’