On Tuesday 4 October around 80 activists from various organisations, including the Committee for a Marxist International, OutRage, Iranian Revolutionary Socialists’ League and the Iranian Civil Rights Committee, took part in a picket outside the Iranian regime’s embassy in London. Most of the organisations present at the picket showed their open and public support for Iranian workers and other exploited and oppressed masses with their banners and placards.
A number of different leaflets about the situation in Iran,
emphasising the continuing persecution of workers and minorities and
the lack of democratic rights for the overwhelming majority of people,
were distributed. The leaflet of the ‘The workers of Iran are not
alone’ campaign highlighted the following demands:
1- Granting all workers’ demands including the right to strike, the
right to form independent labour organisations, the right to free
speech and assembly, and so on.
2- The ending of all physical attacks, arrests, killings and torture of
workers and toilers in the factories and towns of Kurdistan.
3- The unconditional release of all political prisoners.
The police prevented British trade unionists from delivering ‘The workers of Iran are not alone’ petition to the embassy. This petition had been signed by numerous trade union leaders and activists, including Bob Crow, General Secretary of the Rail Maritime and Transport Union, and a number of left-wing Labour Party MPs. The British police said that the embassy staff were not prepared to accept any petition and that, as the embassy building is ‘private property’, they were entitled to this!
The picket ended with a number of short speeches about the lack of trade union rights, democratic rights, executions of homosexuals and so on in Iran. These were well received by the journalists and photographers present.
