DR HANA SAADA asks why a war crime against innocent children on this scale does not dominate the world’s coverage of the US-Israeli war on Iran
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40 years on the struggle for justice continues in Iran
On the 40th anniversary of the Iranian revolution are the hopes of the Iranian people for peace, freedom and democracy any closer to being realised? JANE GREEN considers the current prospects for change in Iran
Unison, NASUWT, UCU and Amnesty International protest at the Iranian Embassy against the Iranian state’s treatment of workers
A call from the World Peace Council to the peace movements of the world
JOHN GREEN argues that the spreading practice of closing bank account without proof of criminality is an infringement of an elementary human right
SEVIM DAGDELEN asks why the European Union is targeting the Swiss academic Jacques Baud, cutting off his access to banking services
IAN SINCLAIR looks at how we are made to swallow, without question, the porkies fed to us by the mass media
Be sure to get your orders in for the Together Alliance demo on March 28, says circulation manager BERNADETTE KEAVENEY
AFTER 25 years of dictatorship under the Shah of Iran, the Iranian people finally freed themselves of the shackles of the Pahlavi dynasty in the national democratic revolution of February 11 1979.
While the figurehead for the opposition to the Shah was the exiled Islamic leader Ayotollah Khomenei, the revolution had the support of a broad spectrum of democratic forces, seizing the opportunity to bring democracy to Iran at long last.
Under the shadow of the Western-inspired Iran-Iraq war, which ran from 1980-88, the theocratic elements, which were only one part of the national democratic revolution, tightened their grip on power.
In draconian purges against those who opposed the establishment of an Islamic Republic, they arrested, tortured and exiled key sections of the left, effectively driving underground any opposition to the consolidation of the grip of the theocracy.
The early years of the Islamic Republic set the tone for the ongoing record of the Iranian regime in relation to human and democratic rights in general, and the rights of political and trade union activists in particular.
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The Committee for the Defence of Iranian People’s Rights (Codir) welcomes demonstrations across Iran, which have put pressure upon the theocratic dictatorship, but warns against intervention by the United States to force Iran in a particular direction
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In the second of two articles, STEVE BISHOP looks at how the 1979 revolution’s aims are obfuscated to create a picture where the monarchists are the opposition to the theocracy, not the burgeoning workers’ and women’s movement on the streets of Iran
As tensions rise in the Middle East, the role of Iran in the region’s political balance becomes ever more significant. STEVE BISHOP assesses the current situation