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Iran: Thirty years of reaction
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Monday February 21, 2011 15:06 by Ruben Markarian - Organisation of Revolutionary Workers of Iran
Ruben Markarian of the Organisation of Revolutionary Workers of Iran addressed the Hopi AGM in London on 12 February 2011. Here is an extract from his speech. The full text is at the url. In 2009 the regime used massive repression against the demonstrators all across the country. There now seems to be a very shaky stability amongst the Islamic rulers, but the roots of political crisis are unresolved. The people who came out onto the streets were subjected to enormous repression: arrests, shootings, rape and executions. Today, executions have reached such a scale that somebody is being executed every eight hours. Iran has now overtaken China in executing the most people. The Iranian regime wants to preserve its rule by spreading fear. |
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Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4James Turley reports on the annual conference of Hands Off the People of Iran.You can get the full text of the report at the url.
Discussions on the day were wide-ranging. Hopi secretary Mark Fischer started proceedings with a report on our work over the last year. Mark pointed out that we had not been the only ones to salute the 2009 protests - we welcomed the apparent overnight conversions of Campaign Iran, the Socialist Workers Party and others from slavish support for the regime to some degree of solidarity. Nonetheless, we had warned against tailing the ‘reformist’ leaders of the green movement; a perspective confirmed by the “dissipation and betrayals” of 2010. With the regime divided, the US and its allies have pounced, imposing ever tougher sanctions - and open warfare, perhaps waged by the US’s Israeli proxy, should not be ruled out...
The second session of the day was on ‘Wikileaks, whistleblowers, revolution and war’. Comrade Machover opened the session by talking about the recent series of leaks relating to the Middle East - most prominently, the Wikileaks-released batch of American diplomatic cables, but also the work of whistleblowers in both the Israeli military and the Palestinian Authority. He claimed that these revelations were a case of “the dog that didn’t bark” - they merely clarified what we already knew.
Crucially, these leaks confirmed that Israel has been involved in a sustained, guerrilla-style campaign against Iran, encompassing espionage, sabotage and outright assassinations. Several scientists working on Iran’s nuclear programme have been killed - so, possibly, has former deputy defence minister Ali-Reza Asgari, who disappeared in Turkey under mysterious circumstances....
The US has been caught off guard, and can hope to recoup some of its control, but not the overwhelming influence it enjoyed with Mubarak in the top job. For Israel, meanwhile, Mubarak’s overthrow is a very dangerous proposition. It has already lost a key ally in Turkey, which was finally confirmed by the Mavi Marmara massacre last year. Now Egypt may go too - and Egyptian acquiescence has been critically important for maintaining the siege on the Gaza Strip. The Israel Defence Force has benefited from troop redeployments away from the Egyptian border; should Egypt present a less friendly face in the future, even the already bloated military budget will prove insufficient.
Comrade Machover concluded by pointing out that the losers in international reconfigurations can behave in unpredictable ways, and that we should not rule out even the most counterproductive and irrational of military adventures on Israel’s part. We must remain vigilant.
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Caption: Video Id: 19982340 Type: Vimeo
Mark Fischer (Hopi secretary) opens Hopi AGM 2011
Caption: Video Id: 20065326 Type: Vimeo
Wikileaks, war and revolution – Moshe Machover
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Caption: Video Id: 20061054 Type: Vimeo
Wikileaks, war and revolution – Mike Macnair
Caption: Video Id: 20070135 Type: Vimeo
The situation in Iran – Ruben Markarian (Rahe Kargar)
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Caption: Video Id: 20072707 Type: Vimeo
The situation in Iran – Yassamine Mather
Caption: Video Id: 20053086 Type: Vimeo
John McDonnell launches campaign ‘Free Jafar Panahi and all political prisoners’