Iran

September marks one year since the murder of Jina Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian-Kurdish woman who was killed in detention following her arrest for allegedly violating Iran ’s compulsory hijab law. Her murder sparked the most significant protests against the Iranian regime since the 1980s and the strength of the uprising prompted the Iranian regime to take the notorious morality police off the streets. CRACKDOWN It has been confirmed that more than twenty thousand people have been arrested and hundreds killed in the subsequent crackdown, with the real number expected to be much higher. Sentences...

On 10 March Iranian and Saudi officials signed an agreement in Beijing

An Iranian criminal court has ordered a woman to perform 270 hours of unpaid labour cleaning public spaces, for breaking the country’s mandatory hijab law. The work will include cleaning the buildings of the Interior Ministry in Tehran. The verdict was based on images from "smart city cameras,”. There has been an increase in surveillance cameras as part of efforts to enforce the mandatory hijab law and crackdown on protests. In April, national police chief Ahmad Reza Radan announced the launch of a “smart” programme involving surveillance cameras to identify women failing to cover their hair...

Please help the campaign to free Sephideh Gholian by passing this motion in your union branch. This branch notes The extreme repression used by the Iranian regime in the aftermath of the murder of Mahsa Jina Amini by the so-called Morality police in September 2022. At least 537 people have been killed, over 20,000 arrested, and 7 executed during the women-led mass protests against the compulsory hijab law in Iran. Demonstrators have demanded “Women, Life, Freedom.” Women are heavily discriminated against in employment, custody rights, education and inheritance. The legal age for marriage, for...

Iran’s dictatorship tightened restrictions on medical abortions and banned the free distribution of contraceptives in 2021 amid a moral panic around the birth-rate. Iranian women have been choosing fewer children in part due to economic crisis. This has led to public health alarm about numbers of illegal abortions. Government officials have said that each year between 300,000 to 600,000 abortions are performed in the country, and over 90% are illegal. Access to contraception and legal abortion is driving a dangerous black market. Until recently abortions could be legally performed during the...

A strike wave is building in Iran. It began in the oil industry, and now includes workers in mines, power plants, and in chemical and steel companies is building in Iran. Workers are demanding large pay increases. Over 100,000 workers are reportedly involved, so far. The strike movement began on Saturday 22 April. Workers in more than 100 enterprises have joined the industrial action. Most of these workers are working on temporary contracts for sub-contractors. Permanent staff in the oil companies are a relatively privileged group and are wary of risking their jobs by striking. The Council for...

Some leftists are equating the Ukrainian resistance to Nazism by emphasising the minority of right-wing nationalist elements in the Ukrainian resistance, acting as useful idiots for Putin and his Russia's colonial war.

According to the US news station, NBC, 2,000 Iranian schoolgirls have reported symptoms of poisoning. One member of Iran’s parliament suggests that the numbers may be far higher, and that 5,000 girls have been poisoned. 800 girls from 58 schools across ten provinces have been hospitalised. Alireza Monadi, head of parliament’s education committee, has admitted that schools have been deliberately attacked and that 30 toxicologists in the Health Ministry believe the toxins are nitrogen gas. Girls have reported strange smells (chlorine or cleaning agents, or tangerines) in their classrooms and...

Sepideh Gholian chanting against Iranian dictator Khamenei as she was released from prison Sepideh Gholian, a radical, 28 year-old workers’ rights activist and citizen journalist, is one of the most prominent women oppositionists imprisoned in Iran. Sepideh was released from the notorious Evin prison, Tehran, on 15 March, after being jailed for over four years for supporting the Workers’ Union of Haft Tappeh (sugar cane workers) strike in 2018. After her release, she immediately staged a one person demonstration, which was filmed by supporters (watch eg here .) Hair uncovered, carrying a bunch...

Video of girls dancing in Ekbatan, Iran, released on IWD 2023 According to the US news station, NBC, 2000 Iranian schoolgirls have reported symptoms of poisoning. One member of Iran’s parliament suggests that the numbers may be far higher, and that 5000 girls have been poisoned. 800 girls from 58 schools across ten provinces have been hospitalised. Alireza Monadi, head of parliament’s education committee, has admitted that schools have been deliberately attacked and that 30 toxicologists in the Health Ministry believe the toxins are nitrogen gas. Although no deaths have been recorded the...