Harry's Place

There’s a protest in Leeds tomorrow:

Protest for Democracy in Iran
Local Iranians and supporters have organised a protest for democracy in Iran following the recent elections, consequent mass demonstrations and deaths of protestors within Iran.
Details of the protest are:-
12 noon – 2pm, Wednesday, 24 June 2009
Outside the Art Gallery, Headrow, Leeds City centre.
This protest is supported by Leeds Coalition against War

Ah, you neocants. That’s “cants”, with an a.

You are suddenly pretending to be all concerned about the trade union movement in Iran, which you have previously treated with the same total disregard or active hostility with which you treat the trade union movement in Britain, or the United States, or anywhere else.

Still, the entertaining side continues apace. Dear old Auntie sees the low vote for the “most liberal” candidate as proof beyond any reasonable doubt that the election must have been rigged. It was held in Iran, dear. Have you got that? Iran.

And now that the North Tehran Trendies’ British counterparts are terribly attentive (ha, ha) to the working class in Iran, is there any chance that they might begin to acknowledge the existence of working-class, or poor, or rural opinion in, say, Britain?

Unbearably vile story from the Wall Street Journal

The family of an Iranian man killed in a demonstration against the country’s contested presidential election has been ordered to pay the equivalent of $3,000 for the bullets that took his life, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Kaveh Alipour, 19, was shot in the head in downtown Tehran on Saturday during one of the most violent clashes between protesters and security forces since the riots began last week.

Iranian authorities later told the family they would not turn over the slain man’s body for burial until they received compensation for the bullets security forces used to shoot him.

Officials finally surrendered the request after the family argued it did not have that much money in possession, but said that the man could not be buried within the city limits.

Iranian authorities, meanwhile, have found another way to combat the opposition movement demonstrating against the contested presidential elections, besides making threats and firing live rounds at protesters.

All mosques in Tehran have been prohibited from holding memorials or publicly mourning the deaths of the riot victims, it emerged on Monday. According to official count in Tehran, 17 people have been killed in more than a week of demonstrations.

Nevertheless, Iran’s defeated moderate candidate Mehdi Karoubi has called on Iranians to hold mourning ceremonies on Thursday for killed protesters, an aide told Reuters on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, David Lindsay thinks it’s all a big larf. Pity, Lindsay won’t be sent to Evian in exchange for the release of an incarcerated Iranian Trade Unionist.

David Lindsay, I’m not sure who your comments are directed at. I’m a consistent supporter of trades unionists internationally, as a brief look at my facebook page, checking google or any of the comments I’ve posted elsewhere would confirm.

I’m was one of the founders of http://www.nosweat.org.uk/, and kept the leeds branch of it running for years; my signature is on many hundreds of petitions supporting rights for workers around the world -including in Iran, I’m banned from the Socialist Unity website for routinely upsetting Andy Newman with such cant as demanding that we treat solidarity with workers in “anti-imperialist” countries the same as in the UK, and I’ve been personally denounced from the platform by the likes of George Galloway, Arthur Scargill and Tony Benn for supporting workers in (respectively) Iraq, Cuba and Poland.

Oh and I’m an active trades unionist in the UK, so f.ck you.

And I think trade unions have a remarkable ability to destroy industry and therefore, subsequently, the jobs they purport to exist in order to protect, so I’m not pretending to be concerned about this or any other outside of the fact that innocent people are being locked up.

And to me, solidarity means eating bran flakes and other fibrous foods. So, I’d we very willing to show solidarity with Iranian trade unionists. They’d have to come here though. I can’t be arsed to move. Especially not after eating a shitload (literally) of bran flakes.

I think trade unions have a remarkable ability to destroy industry

Perhaps you can plot on a graph some measure of trade union activity on the x axis against a metric for industrial development or health on the y axis to prove this. Otherwise people might just think you’re another know-nothing blowhard.

I’ll do it later. I’ve just eaten three bowls of All Bran (for Iranian trade unionist solidarity) and I can’t move. In the mean time, I guess I’ll have to suck it up, put on the big boy trousers and live with ‘people’ maybe thinking I’m a know-nothing blowhard. I’m a trooper.

David Lindsay: instead of bashing others, what are YOU going to do? Will you join the demo to support Iran’s heroic trade union activists?

I have campaigned in support of the left and trade union movement in Iran (and Britain) for nearly 40 years, first against the Shah and since 1979 against the ayatollahs.

I might be wrong but at least I am consistent – unlike many sections of the left who have for the last three decades abandoned Iranian labour activists, socialists, feminists, gay people and Iran’s persecuted religious and ethnic minorities, such as the Arabs, Kurds and Baluchs.

Does anyone know if there is anything happening outside the Iranian Embassy this evening? I heard somewhere that there were protests going on every day between 6 and 8pm but I can’t find details of it anywhere online.

In response to Mr Lindsay, he could try reading the Chatham House report – http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/22_06_09_chathamiran.pdf

Not wanting to repeat myself, but I think this point is important – For those who argue that Ahmadinejad did win the election (although admitting that it was not by as much as was stated) and that we should therefore accept this as the outcome of a democratic process, I would simply point out the following: four hundred and seventy five candidates put themselves forward to stand in this election and only four were cleared to stand by the Council of Guardians. This was a democratic process so squeezed that it is barely democratic at all. The importance of these protests is not the fight between Mousavi and Ahmadinejad, but the fight for greater openness, greater democracy, greater personal freedom and greater equality in Iran in the future.

Nora and everyone.

Yes, as far as I know, there are still nightly protests outside the Iranian Embassy from 6pm to 8pm.

I have been last week, but cannot go tonight. Good atmosphere. But almost entirely Iranians. Very little solidarity from non-Iranians. No lefts. A pity.

I might be wrong but at least I am consistent – unlike many sections of the left who have for the last three decades abandoned Iranian labour activists, socialists, feminists, gay people and Iran’s persecuted religious and ethnic minorities, such as the Arabs, Kurds and Baluchs.

I don’t know Peter, I see absolute consistency in your list. Consistency of inaction, consistency of apathy if not consistency with stated (but never once acted on) principles.

I find myself believing there is no longer a left.

Does anyone know about any protests in the U.S. and other countries? Here in the States the only diplomatic mission of Iran is at the UN because the US and Iran have not had diplomatic ties since the American Embassy hostage crisis, thirty years ago.

David All

There is a demo in Ottawa, Canada, and in other cities.

See here:

http://www.justiceforiranianworkers.org

Also:

Demonstration in Ottawa

Outside Iranian Embassy

Global Solidarity Action Day

Justice for workers and people of Iran

Friday, June 26, 2009

Time: 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Where: The Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran – 245 Metcalfe St., Ottawa

Join workers, unions and progressive and human rights activists in protest against the gross violation of workers’ and human rights in Iran.

Thanks, Peter.

Thanks for the update about the nightly protests. I would prefer to attend and support there with all the people – than a selective protest on June 26. I haven’t been able to find any info so far. Great.

Cool there’s a banner on youtube:

“Breaking news: For the latest videos from Iran, visit http://youtube.com/citizentube “

Oh, we know about Lindsay. He’s just part of the General Franco fash. Or, alternatively, the Gregor Strasser Nazis.

So far the protests have been every night this week.

Death in Iran

(warning, this is very powerful and bloody).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyuOL6yQGk0&feature=channel