En Passant

This is the extended version of a talk presented by Behzad Bagheri, an Iranian socialist activist, in a meeting jointly organised by Socialist Alternative and Iran Solidarity-Melbourne in July 2013. The text is edited by Afshin Nikouseresht and is reproduced from Redflag.

Free jailed workers and all political prisoners in Iran! End executions! Demonstrate 12 Pm Thursday Parliament House NSW The Islamic Republic of Iran is speeding up the rate of execution, with tens of prisoners executed over the past few weeks alone. There are 3000 people of death row. Given economic crisis and widespread poverty, the […]

In the end, the escalating tensions and threats of war are certain to continue–no matter how obvious it becomes that the supposed “nuclear threat” from Iran isn’t a threat at all. That’s because U.S. imperialism is determined to dominate the Middle East in order to control the flow of the world’s most precious commodity, oil, from the Persian Gulf–and this inevitably means more conflicts with Iran. The West’s ratcheted-up rhetoric and escalating sanctions aren’t about making the region or the world safer from nuclear weapons. On the contrary, they will make war and suffering more likely, not less.

Iranian workers have the opportunity to change history – not just of Iran but of the world. The protests in Iran today contain within them the seeds of a workers’ revolution. The demands of the protestors are political and include the freedom to organise, to express themselves, to have their vote counted fairly, for women’s rights and now, […]

From Revolutionary Road … by Saeed Valadbaygi: Dear Santa,This year you took my favorite singer Michael Jackson,my favorite actor,Partrick Swayze and my favorite actress Farrah Fawcett.Let me remind you that my favorite politician is MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD.please don’t forget,thank you so much.Happy 2010!

Marg bar dictator. This is Farsi for ‘death to the dictator’, one of the chants of the tens of thousands of protestors in the streets of Tehran today. The dispute started off as a fight among the ruling elite but has the potential to become one for the very survival of the Islamic republic.  I do not […]

Haven’t the press and politicians been very quiet about the elections in Afghanistan? Vote rigging there is evidently OK but in Iran is very bad.  The difference appears to be on who is doing the rigging.  When ‘our’ allies do it it is OK.  When ‘our’ enemies do it that is an outrage. The hypocrisy of […]

Greg Sheridan from The Australian is full of it. The Left has supported the masses in Iran. But unlike Sheridan we are not lining up behind butchers like Mousavi.

I went to the union demonstration yesterday outside the Iranian embassy in Canberra. There were about 200 people – some of whom were Shah supporters. The buses from Sydney with unionists from the CFMEU, the MUA and others sure helped. We could agree on some slogans – death to the dictator and death to the […]

Chavez supports the Iranian dictators as an expression of his bourgeois nationalist policies. I’m with the Iranian protesters and the nascent Iranian revolution.