Support for

International Campaign to Defend Iranian Students

NUS

Statement from the National Union of Students UK in solidarity with the student protesters in Iran

NUS UK wish to register in the strongest possible terms our opposition to the violence and repression exercised against Iranian students and workers following the recent pro-democracy protests in Iran.

We express our solidarity with the democratic, anti-dictatorial movement of the Iranian people expressed in the protests which took place in July 1999.

We demand the immediate release of all political prisoners and the immediate retraction of the death sentences imposed on the alleged student leaders of the protests.

We condemn the continued harassment of political activists and the terror unleashed by the security forces.

We strongly support the students demands for freedom of thought, expression and organisation, for women's rights, and we condemn attempts to disband or harass independent student organisations.

We wish to inform you that we will do everything in our power to show solidarity with those who work for democracy in Iran and to oppose the dictatorial repression exercised by the Iranian regime.

NUS fully supports the rights of the Iranian people to an open and democratic system of government and calls for other organisations to support the aims of this campaign.

Signed: Andrew Pakes (President of NUS) and Sarah Shooter (NUS Exec member)

on behalf of NUS Executive

 

Tower hamlets Trade Union Council

On behalf of the Tower Hamlets Trades Union Council, which is situated in the East side of London, we give our unconditional International support and our Solidarity to our brothers and sisters of the Iranian Students Movement in their fight against fundamentalist state repression. We will give what ever it takes to assist you in your fight for free speech, and your right to organise independently.

Yours in International Solidarity.

John Ballantyne.

President Tower Hamlets Trades Union Council.

Homan9

Subject: HOMAN9 the group to defend the rights of Iranian gays/lesbians -

UK support your action. To: hh@etehadchap.com

Dear friend: On behalf of HOMAN-UK I am writing to show our support for students and your action.Good luck.

Turkish Organsiations

Date: Sat, 9 Oct 1999 17:45:55 EDT

Dear friends,

We are writing from Progressive Information and Documentation Centre of Turkey. We have sent your document which is Stop Another Massacre Political Prisoners to some Turkish and Kurdish organisation. We and the following organisations want to support your campaign.

1- Progressive Information and Documentation Centre of Turkey-UK,

2- Refugee Workers Cultural Association -UK,

3- Immigrant Workers Federation of Germany -Germany,

4- ACTIT (Association Culturelle Des Travailleurs Immigres De Turquie -France,

5- Solidarity Committee for Free Prisoners In Turkey -Germany,

6- Solidarity Committee for Free Prisoners In Turkey -France,

7- Solidarity Committee for Free Prisoners In Turkey -UK,

8- Solidarity Committee for Free Prisoners In Turkey -Switzerland,

9- Platform of Democratic Struggle -Turkey,

Yours faithfully

Progressive Information and Documentation Centre of Turkey,

Anglia Students' Union

We, Anglia Students' Union, on behalf of the students at Anglia Polytechnic University, urge the Iranian Embassy to demand that the death sentence is lifted on the 4 student activists who demonstrated in July.We also believe that students, activists & workers in Iran have freedom of speech & expression & organisation.

We also demand an end to the harrassment & detention of political activists and an end to the terror unleashed by the security forces.

On behalf of the students

Rebecca Stevenson, PRESIDENT, Anglia Students' Union, 19 Oct 1999

From: Movement For Socialism

To Co-ordinating Committee of Workers Left Unity -Iran

Movement For Socialism

Dear Comrades, Movement For Socialism supports your Campaign in Defence of Iranian students.We will do all we can to participate in the activties of this campaign

Liz Leicester

Chair -Movement For Socialism, 9th Oct 99

Alliance for Workers' Liberty

Release all political prisoners in Iran!

Dear Brothers and Sisters

The struggle of the Iranian students and youth, which erupted onto the streets in July, is an expression of the mass discontent in Iran. Hundreds of thousands of young people find their situation - the lack of jobs, the cultural oppression, the oppression of women - simply intolerable.It seems that the tide is turning. During the repression which followed the protests 1,500 students, workers and other oppositionists were arrested. We demand their release, and the release of all political prisoners in Iran.

Khatami's election bought the regime a little time. For a while the mass protests subsided and Iranians watched to see if Khatami would bring substantial reform. But the government made promises which it failed to keep. The very limited 'openness' of the last two years is too little to satisfy the wants and needs of the people. It has prompted the students to demand more - real freedom.

Even in the immediate aftermath of the riots, and during the clampdown against the opponents, the clerical factions have continued to publicly fight each other. The regime is bitterly split. And it is difficult to see a medium-term way out for them.

Neither Khamenei nor Khatami have any real answers to the economic and social crisis. Both factions are thoroughly anti-working class. Khamenei and Khatami are representatives of two wings of the same problem - the brutal, barbaric, corrupt regime of the mullahs. The British liberal press who would - if they could - stop the independent mass opposition movement for fear of undermining Khatami's position, simply reveal their conservatism, their spinelessness and their accommodation to the status quo.

And the British revolutionaries too would do well to remember the importance of political independence from the Islamicists, and the lessons of the late '70s and '80s when many socialist organisations held illusions in Khomeini's Islamic revolution, and then went on to back so-called 'anti-imperialist' Iran against Iraq.

The Iranian workers and the socialist left have suffered terrible repression. And yet the regime seems to understand the threat posed by the workers - attempting to set up fake, Islamic 'unions' and political organisations for the workers, in an attempt to head off and control the workers.

We support the independent self-organisation of workers and students, the right to free trade and student unions, and freedom of political association and organisation.

For freedom, and the liberation of women!

Neither Khamenei nor Khatami, but working class independence!

For the workers' revolution!

The student organisers of the Alliance for Workers' Liberty

Kate Buckell, Sarah Shooter (NUS Exec, personal capacity), Rosie Woods, Lee Sergent (Oxford University Non-payers), Helen Russell (NUS national women's officer, pc)

Workers left Unity

The Co-ordinating Committee of Workers Left Unity gave the following Radio interviews in defence of Iranian students' protests

1-Pejhvak radio ( Scandinavian radio) broadcast on the internet and to Iran: 5minutes 29th Sept

2-Radio Peyk local radio , Gothenberg 40 minutes interview 30th Sept

3-Radio Ma va Shoma , Gothenberg 45 minutes interview 30th sept

4-Radio Hambastegi , Stockholm 20 minutes

5-Radio Dreyeckland in Freiburg Germnay has read the statement

6-Radio Tribunal Malmo , broadcast 16th Oct

7-Radio in Oslo Persian broadcast - Norway

The Co-ordinating Committee of Workers Left Unity participcated in the following discussion meetings and spoke in support of the Campaign in defence of Iranian students:

A speaker from Workers Left Unity Iran spoke at a meeting organised by Glasgow Marxist Forum in Partick. The meeting discussed the recent political upheavals in Iran and the struggles of the Iranian working class.

A number of contributors to the journal Critique, supporters of Workers Liberty, Scottish Socialist Party , Democracy and Socialism in Ireland , were present in this meeting and asked a number of questions regarding 'privatisation' policies in Iran, the role of oil in Iranian economy, the influence of religion on political

activists of the left...

A speaker from Workers Left Unity spoke at a meeting orgniased by Scottish Socialist Party Tuesday 19th of meeting.A number of students at Scottish Universities attended this meeting.

Meeting in London University: At the invitation of Workers Liberty , meeting was held on Thursday 7th Oct in SOAS. At this meeting a speaker from WL gave a talk on the February uprising and its significance, then comrade Reza Ghafari gave a talk discussing the role of the working class in recent protests and the role of the urban poor and shanti town dwellers in future upheavals in Iran were discussed.