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Author Topic: HUNDREDS of striking bus workers arrested in Teheran
lagatta
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posted 31 January 2006 11:21 AM      Profile for lagatta     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Beginning on Friday, 27 January, security forces in Iran began arresting hundreds of striking bus workers in Teheran, including the leadership of the union. Workers are also being intimidated into signing pledges to give up strike and protest actions or risk being fired. The management of the company and the company's Islamic Council worked hand in hand with the security forces to help identify the workers and assist in the arrests. Union officials said the brutality of the security forces was indescribable. The wives and children of some union executive members were also arrested, but later released. They were taken out of bed and beaten up during raids on Friday night. The beatings continued in detention. On Saturday, as the workers arrived at the picket lines, they were rounded up. Many were verbally abused, threatened and beaten up to force them to drive the buses. Those who refused were taken away. The majority of the detainees are now in the high security Evin Prison, which is notorious for the torture and execution of thousands of political prisoners.

In arresting these workers, the Iranian government is in violation of ILO core conventions and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and deserves to be condemned by the entire world. Please add your name to the thousands who are sending a loud and clear message to President Ahmadinejad -- free the jailed workers now!


Free the jailed workers now!

From: Se non ora, quando? | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
solarpower
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posted 31 January 2006 11:28 AM      Profile for solarpower   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
CAW Local 302 member has signed :-)
Going to the workers homes and beating up their families!

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lagatta
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posted 09 February 2006 10:01 AM      Profile for lagatta     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I'm bumping this because the other thread about incidents relating to the CLC protest of this repression in front of the Iranian embassy in Ottawa was closed.

The labour start petition and article have been updated and there is a lot more information about the workers' struggle, Iranian government repression and international solidarity with the workers.

Please sign and get your union to sign, if you are a union member! Labour Start campaign: solidarity with Teheran bus workers!


From: Se non ora, quando? | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 09 February 2006 06:13 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Solidarinosc for Iranian shipyard workers, I mean public transit workers!. Where're Brian and Maggie when we need them?.
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Tarek Fatah
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posted 10 February 2006 08:08 AM      Profile for Tarek Fatah   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by lagatta:

Please sign and get your union to sign, if you are a union member! Labour Start campaign: solidarity with Teheran bus workers!

This is great. Thank you for sharing this link. Somehow this issue has escaped the attention of the media in Canada. Even the demo in Ottawa didn't make it. Too many people in Iran, not just these trade unionists, are suffering. The trick is to be agressively critcal of the Iranian dictatorship while not appearing as appendages of the Bush-Blair agenda.

[ 10 February 2006: Message edited by: Tarek Fatah ]


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swallow
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posted 10 February 2006 03:24 PM      Profile for swallow     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
This is from Kaven in another thread clsoed for some reason:

quote:
The fact is that most people on the Left understand the issue and stand in solidarioty with Iranian striking workers. However, the IS and some Islamists who are masqurading as "muslim community leadres' are affecting this debate and confusing many leftists.

It seems to me that when the war on Iraq started, there was a move to shut up about previous left criticisms of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. I hope that this won't happen with regard to Iran, if it's up next for a US war. So it's really wonderful to see the labour solidarity for Iranian strikers. Does anyone know of other solidarity connections being built?


From: fast-tracked for excommunication | Registered: May 2002  |  IP: Logged
swallow
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posted 06 March 2006 01:26 PM      Profile for swallow     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
This thread, also closed, has some good links.

And i did want to respond to one point on that thread:

quote:
Are we calling for support for the workers because they are facing a ruthless employer or because they are facing an "Islamic Regime" and "taking on the Mullahs" ?

Like Michelle on that thread, i think the answer should be both. I'd be keen to see more support for pro-democracy activism in Iran, which seems to stem from a growing civil society. People keep coming on babble and demanding support for this sort of union activism against the Iranian dictatorship. To those people, please can you tell us what sort of actions might be useful to support? The CLC seems to be making some efforts, but is there anything else that can be done?


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skdadl
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posted 06 March 2006 01:39 PM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
swallow, what I know about Iran I know mainly through reading reporters who live there, but - as we have often discussed on babble - there seems to be a consensus among them that any civil-resistance movement has been suppressed and repressed and depressed over the last six or seven years, that it is on the run rather than growing.

This latest instance of brutal repression is suggestive of just how strong the regime feels it is right now, of how weak and scattered they take the resistance to be. The murder of Zahra Kazemi and the subsequent defiance of Canadian government representations is further such evidence.

The opposition is still there, of course.


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rici
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posted 06 March 2006 01:57 PM      Profile for rici     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
skdadl, what is your source for this:

quote:
Ahmadinejad came to power on promises to "the poor," implying the working classes of Tehran (ie, these bus drivers), which is crap. Ahmadinejad is a very raw country populist who came to power through right-wing demagoguery in rural and provincial Iran.

which you used to discount Roya Hakakian (about whom I know nothing).

According to Aljazeera:

quote:
Rafsanjani's supporters tend to be from the upper and middle classes who are tired of Iran's isolation and want more social freedom. They fear Ahmadinejad will turn back the clock to the strictures and purges that followed the 1979 Islamic revolution.

To them, Ahmadinejad is an outsider challenging the vested business interests of Rafsanjani's wealthy family and others they believe have benefited most from booming oil prices.

Ahmadinejad, a former instructor of the Basij militia, guardians of the revolution's ideals, has support among the working-class, who struggle to make ends meet.


and

quote:
Voting was brisk in Ahmadinejad bastions of support such as south Tehran and the Islamic seminary city of Qom.

"I vote for Ahmadinejad because he wants to cut the hands of those who are stealing the national wealth and he wants to fight poverty ... and discrimination," said Rahmatollah Izadpanah, 41.

In wealthier north Tehran, Rafsanjani voters said they feared Ahmadinejad would reverse modest reforms made under Khatami that allow women to dress in brighter, skimpier clothes and couples to fraternise in public without fear of arrest.

"(Rafsanjani) will prevent society from going backwards and he will give us some freedom," said businessman Morteza, 46.


First quote from Iranians vote in presidential run-off, June 24, 2005

Second quote from Ahmadinejad elected president of Iran, June 25, 2005

That seems to justify the claim (also used as a photo caption in the latter story) that:

quote:
Mahmood Ahmadinejad appealed to the urban and rural poor.

From: Lima, Perú | Registered: Jun 2002  |  IP: Logged
swallow
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posted 06 March 2006 01:58 PM      Profile for swallow     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
What i hear makes it sound like civil society is growing compared to how crushed down it was in the 80s, not the pro-democracy movement which of course faces increasing oppression. I think the Nobel Peace Prize to Shirin Ebadi was a good way to focus the spotlight. Are there actions like the ones in support of RAWA that might work in the Iran case, for instance?
From: fast-tracked for excommunication | Registered: May 2002  |  IP: Logged
radiorahim
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posted 06 March 2006 11:37 PM      Profile for radiorahim     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Solidarinosc for Iranian shipyard workers, I mean public transit workers!. Where're Brian and Maggie when we need them?.

Huh????


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