Haft Tapeh Workers‏ Fight Iranian Miliary & Police

In the latest developments in the Haft Tapeh strike the workers and their supporters have clashed with the Iranian Military and police. On this the 13th day of the strike by Haft Tapeh , crowds joined the workers' protest in their thousands and confronted the security forces. According to the latest reports the military and police are using tear gas and batons to disperse the demonstrators.

The demonstration slogans were:Workers would die rather than accept representation by fake unions!Death to Saedi !( Saedi is the member of the Islamic Majles [parliament] for the city of Shoush where the factory is located) The fact that the Iranian Dictatorship are prepared to send in the military against the striking workers is both a sign of their desperation and their determination to crush independent unions at any cost. They fully realise that independent unions would organise strong opposition to the Iranian Dictatorships programme of privatisation.

The above is based on reports from Iran translated by Yassamine Mather. For more information and background on the strike go to the link below.
http://www.iwsn.org/campaigns/sugar.htm


Latest News by pat c Mon May 19, 2008 19:35

Thousands of Haft Tapeh sugar cane workers marched through Shush on 17 May 17. The 3,000 marchers, were joined along the way by local people, swelling their ranks to 5,000,.After first gathering outside the Governor’s Office at 8.00 a.m., they then marched with their families and supporters, towards the city centre. The slogans included: “Livelihood and dignity is our certain right”, “Legal cases must be closed”, “Head of security must be fired”, and “Haft-Tapeh workers are hungry”.

Around 11.30 a.m. the security forces attacked the marchers with tear gas. Two workers are reported to have been taken to hospital injured, one of whom has been kept in the hospital.The sugar cane workers, are demanding the dropping of the threatened legal actions against worker activists, which are based on fabricated charges, resignation of the director and management of the company, and the firing of the head of the factory security who has played a particularly vicious role in persecuting workers.

Five workers have been summoned to appear before court on20th May. This is the third strike by sugar cane workers in the past year.A march by around 2,000 workers on Thursday was also attacked by the security forces, resulting in five injuries. Some family members of the workers described the brutality of the police in interviews to international radio stations.
Source: LabourStart

Over 6,000 workers march on 15th day of strike

Thousands of Haft Tapeh sugar cane workers marched again on Sunday and Monday through the town of Shush ahead of the sham trial of five of their colleagues on Tuesday 20 May, which the workers are fighting to stop. As in the last few days, the people of the town also joined the march today. At one point the workers blocked the main highway in the area.

On mondays march, the workers shouted slogans for the payment of unpaid wages and the scrapping of the legal actions against their colleagues. Another slogan reverberating through the streets today was for the release of jailed workers: “Jailed workers must be freed!”A large mobilisation is also expected today at the court.Workers from around Iran have expressed their support for the strike.

The Free Union of Iranian Workers, workers of Ahvaz Pipe Manufacturing Company and workers from Iran Khodro Car Manufacturing Company issued statements on Monday to express their solidarity with the workers and to condemn the impending action against the five activists. Last week several workers’ organisations issued a Joint Statement to condemn the persecution of the sugar cane workers, as well as calling for the immediate and unconditional release of currently jailed workers Javanmir Moradi, Taha Azadi, Sheis Amani and Mansoor Ossanlou.A video clip of Mondays march is embedded here.
Source: LabourStart.

Iranian film night at the Caz barracka Books Barrack Street - Thursday 15th 8pm‏

Abbas Kiarostami, Iran's most celebrated director, takes his audience on adriver's-eye view of the urban landscape of modern Tehran.
A boy (Amin Maher) climbs into the car and starts arguing with an unseendriver, his mother (Mania Akbari), who lectures her adolescent son on theliberation that her divorce has brought her. "Every time I step in the car you start," he shouts. She doggedly drills alesson in women’s rights into the defiant boy and he's downright insolent with hiseye-rolling carping and bratty screams until he literally flees theconversation by bailing out of the car. The long, unbroken take ends and wecut to the driver, an elegant woman in red lipstick, sunglasses, a colourful and a modest scarf.There's no doubt that Kiarostami is giving us a lesson in social politics,but the education lies in the mosaic pieced together from conversations andsituations. The prostitute climbs in because she assumes only a man would bedriving around Tehran at night. A woman pours her heart out when the manleaves her and our driver is surprisingly uncomforting. And Amin, the mouthychild who is alternately articulate and impulsively emotional, becomes afrightening glimpse into the next generation of men sure of the proper placeof women in Iranian society.

Iranian film night at the Caz barracka Books Barrack Street - Thursday 15th 8pm‏