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The grim news from Iran is that student and activist Ali Kantouri has been sentenced to 15 years in prison as a result of his political activities. Kantouri participated in the National Students’ Day demonstrations of December 2007 and, like a number of his fellow left activists, he was persecuted for his activities and was subsequently arrested, tortured and detained for an extended period of time over the course of the last two years.
According to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, Kantouri‘s sentence was issued by Branch 104 of the Sanandaj General Court and immediately prior to the pronouncement of sentencing, Ali continued to deny the charges against him. There is a chance that the sentence may be reduced or otherwise amended but there is no information regarding the likelihood of such a development.
Ali Kantouri has friends and admirers around the world. We grieve for Ali and his family and we hope that the Iranian people will ultimately unite and set right the terrible crimes committed by the theocracy and its ruling clique. These despots have systematically and methodically victimized the people of Iran for decades.
The unjust imprisonment of Ali Kantouri should serve as a stark reminder to Western Marxists -- as well as progressives and activists everywhere -- that anti-imperialism is not the sole hallmark of a worthwhile or viable political system. Political Islam is, in and of itself, overtly hostile to political opponents, workers and students, employing barbarism of the worst kind upon all those who struggle against such dogma and oppression. Ali Kantouri – like his comrades Peyman Piran and Behrouz Karimizadeh – can certainly attest to this.
A better world is possible. A better world is necessary.
Our small venture, Erythrós Press and Media, has yielded its first official publication. The book Red Youth: Young Heroes of the Great Patriotic War went on sale earlier this week through our online store. This book is hopefully the first volume in a series of books that will chronicle the outstanding achievements of the youngest fighters in the Soviet Union's struggle against fascist Germany during World War II. This volume tells the story of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, who was the first female fighter of World War II to be named "Hero of the Soviet Union."
I have been preparing materials for this project as far back as late 2004 when I began transcribing the entire contents of Lyubov Kosmodemyanskaya's 1953 book The Story of Zoya and Shura for greeklish.org. Shortly thereafter, I began research for an annotated version of the book that I hoped to publish in print at some point in the future. I did quite a bit of work on this project, compiling a huge annotated manuscript and reams of notes, but I shelved the project after I developed many questions and concerns regarding Soviet and Russian copyright law.
A while later, I resurrected the project, first intending to produce a single-volume work which featured biographies of a number of young heroes, including Zoya, Marat Kazey, Elizaveta Chaikina, Zinaida Portnova and others. Realizing I had a significant amount of material on Zoya alone as a result of my previous research, I settled on the idea of developing a multi-volume set that would include newly annotated transcriptions of public domain, Soviet era documents along with my original introductory notes and supplemental information. This first volume of Red Youth is thus the culmination of over four years of work.
I have a tendency towards self-criticism and this tends to effect how I feel about things at the end of a relatively long project. Such is the case with Red Youth. Upon my initial perusal of the finished product, I immediately noticed a few block quotes that weren't properly indented and a missed line break or two. That wasn't so bad. Probably my most unfortunate oversight (which I noticed a bit later) was my failure to include V. I. Lenin's name in the table of contents listing for his 1920 work "Tasks of the Youth Leagues." The document itself is properly noted and cited later in the text, but I would have liked for an important feature like the table of contents to be completely accurate. A good friend put things in perspective for me, however. He told me that having a handful of imperfections gives the work a feeling of credibility that might not otherwise come with an immaculately produced product from a big, bourgeois publishing house. I suppose that is a nice way to look at it.
Whatever the case, I need to get to work promoting and distributing the work to spread the story of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya far and wide once again.
Quite a few of my close friends helped me with this project through hard work, patience, encouragement and support. Below is the complete text of my "Acknowledgments" section from the book. A number of people from around the world contributed significant time and effort toward the preparation and enhancement of this book. I am especially grateful to my friend Andy Blunden for his assistance and guidance in all aspects of my work, with particular appreciation for his help in formatting and editing the complete text of this volume. Brian Reid and Clara Statello also assisted in proofreading and editing of most of the documents contained herein and their critique and support were vital to this endeavor. Randy Graham also helped by proofreading selected documents.
Mitch Abidor provided much-needed advice and encouragement at a critical point in my writing.
I thank Tim Davenport from the Early American Marxism website for providing source material. I am also indebted to Steve Palmer and my other fellow volunteers of the Marxists Internet Archive for their collective assistance with a number of research topics.
My friends Einde O'Callaghan, Nina Lebed, Antonis Megremis and Nikos Loudos assisted with the translation of selected passages from source documents and research materials.
I also extend my heartfelt gratitude for my dear friends who have inspired me through their political work and activism. I am thankful to know Panos Fidis, Sam Berner, and many of the students and supporters of the Freedom and Equality Seeking Students of Iran. It is their work and struggle that inspires me to move forward in numerous endeavors, including this project.
I am fortunate to have the friendship and tutelage of David Walters who has provided me with valuable camaraderie, guidance and insight for almost a decade. I am certainly a better person for knowing him.
Finally, I must express my deepest appreciation for the love and companionship of my wife Thomaï. She is my most important supporter and critic and she is responsible for everything good and decent in my life.
With my attention divided amongst a host of real life and net-based endeavors, I have been slow to comment on the situation in Iran despite the fact that I have a great deal of interest in the developments which continue to unfold hour upon hour. I am following the news as closely as possible, reading accounts through the mainstream media as well as the host of user-generated news sources on the Internet. My dear Iranian brothers and sisters -- those within Iran and throughout the world -- are never far from my thoughts these days.
The current situation in Iran is one that should surprise absolutely no one. From the egomaniacal and demagogic mullahs to the courageous workers and students who now fill the streets of Tehran and other cities in protest, surely they must have all known that history would bring them face to face at this particular juncture. Indeed, what is occurring in Iran right now must happen. Irrespective of the outcome this time around, it is the Iranian people who must move forward in pursuit of a better quality of life and a collective existence that is free from the scourges of oppression and intolerance that were foisted upon them after Political Islam's betrayal of the 1979 Revolution.
One of the most particularly interesting dimensions of the international response to the current events in Iran has been the fact that American progressives and liberals must now come to grips with the despotic nature of Ahmadinejad and Iran's ruling clique. For some time, a number of currents and tendencies of the American left have stood firm on a shameful and baseless conviction that Ahmadinejad is the peace-loving face of the anti-imperialist movement. Now, as the brazen chicanery of the theocracy's election fraud proceeded by its brutal and reactionary response to democratic and popular dissent is exposed to the world, those who have ignored and obscured the true nature of Political Islam must now face the reality of the horrors which they have tacitly and implicitly endorsed through their silence, including the slaughter of left opposition activists and Marxist dissidents, oppression of women and religious minorities and the torture and murder of homosexuals and labor leaders.
In a discussion of previous elections in Iran back in 2001, the late Mansoor Hekmat shared his enthusiasm that the Iranian people might someday mobilize and wrest political power from their oppressors. He said:
"Now, it is reaction that is against the mainstream and it is we who represent the majority. Victory is possible and achievable. This is the essence of the current political situation in Iran." (full text)
As enthusiastic as these words were eight years ago, they ring true today as the people of Iran stand just one great stride from a new direction forward. History is on their side as the people of the world support them in their struggle for freedom and equality.
Aluta continua! Personal postscript: For the past several months, I've been wrapped up with a handful of projects, some of which are serious and others…well, they were not so serious. In any event, I've resolved to return to some of the things that have been so important to me over the past several years, including my writings on greeklish.org as well as a few other web-based projects. Just this week, I've resumed work again on the development of an archive of the works of Josip Broz Tito, adding a short excerpt from a 1955 interview with Radio Belgrade. More works from 1941-1961 are forthcoming as are additional documents for one of my favorite subject archives of MIA, the Yugoslavia Subject Section.
A few months ago, Iranian student and activist Peyman Piran finally escaped persecution in Iran after enduring a protracted campaign of political persecution. He left his home in hopes of being granted political asylum in a more progressive country.
At the moment, Peyman sits in a detention center in Norway awaiting a decision which could ultimately return him to Iran. If – like many other refugees – Peyman is returned to Iran, his life will be in grave danger once again. Please send appeals to the headquarters of the Norwegian Refugee Council and other diplomatic representatives of Norway accredited in your country.
Norwegian Refugee Council: PO Box 6758 St. Olavs Plass, 0130 Oslo Phone.: +(47) 23 10 98 00 Fax.: + (47) 23 10 98 01 E-mail: nrc@nrc.no
Royal Norwegian Embassy in Washington (US) 2720 34th Street NW Washington, DC 20008 Tel: (202) 333-6000 Fax: (202) 337-0870 E-mail: emb.washington@mfa.no
Royal Norwegian Embassy (UK) 25 Belgrave Square London SW1X 8QD Telephone 020 7591 5500 Fax: 020 7245 6993 E-mail: emb.london@mfa.no
For a complete list of contact information for Norway’s embassies and Consulates General, visit this link: http://www.norway.info/splash.aspx
To mark International Women’s Day 2009, I am happy to present some biographical sketches and works of some of my favorite female authors and activists. Also included is a work on gender equality from pre-revolutionary China.
Iris Chang
Iris Chang (1968 - 2004) was a Chinese-American author who is best known for her 1997 book The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II, which provides the most thorough English-language account of the atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army during the occupation of Nanking, China in the late 1930’s. The success of her book bolstered awareness regarding the war crimes committed by the Japanese and in the years following the publication of The Rape of Nanking, Chang led a public campaign urging the Japanese government to both apologize for war-time atrocities and to compensate survivors of the Nanking massacre.
Iris Chang died suddenly in 2004.
Han
Suyin
Han Suyin (1917 - ) is a physician and author. She was born in China and much of her writing involves the history and struggles of the Chinese People. She has written a number of works on the history of modern China, including the 1972 book The Morning Deluge: Mao Tse-tung and the Chinese Revolution, 1893-1954. She has also penned a multi-volume autobiographical series and a number of novels, including her most celebrated work, A Many Splendoured Thing (1952).
Dr. Han is recognized worldwide as an authority Chinese history and culture. In 1996, she was named “Friendship Envoy" by the Chinese People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries. She currently resides in Switzerland.
In 2008, she was charged with a number of crimes against the Islamic regime of Iran in connection with the Students’ Day protests. Later the same year, she was voted an honorary Vice President of the National Union of Students.
Begum Rokeya (1880 - 1932) was an author an activist for women’s rights in undivided Bangladesh.
One evening I was lounging in an easy chair in my bedroom and thinking lazily of the condition of Indian womanhood. I am not sure whether I dozed off or not. But, as far as I remember, I was wide awake. I saw the moonlit sky sparkling with thousands of diamond-like stars, very distinctly.
All on a sudden a lady stood before me; how she came in, I do not know. I took her for my friend, Sister Sara.
"Good morning," said Sister Sara. I smiled inwardly as I knew it was not morning, but starry night. However, I replied to her, saying, "How do you do?"
"I am all right, thank you. Will you please come out and have a look at our garden?"
I looked again at the moon through the open window, and thought there was no harm in going out at that time. The men-servants outside were fast asleep just then, and I could have a pleasant walk with Sister Sara.
I used to have my walks with Sister Sara, when we were at Darjeeling. Many a time did we walk hand in hand and talk light-heartedly in the botanical gardens there. I fancied, Sister Sara had probably come to take me to some such garden and I readily accepted her offer and went out with her.
When walking I found to my surprise that it was a fine morning. The town was fully awake and the streets alive with bustling crowds. I was feeling very shy, thinking I was walking in the street in broad daylight, but there was not a single man visible.
Some of the passers-by made jokes at me. Though I could not understand their language, yet I felt sure they were joking. I asked my friend, "What do they say?"
"The women say that you look very mannish."
"Mannish?" said I, "What do they mean by that?"
"They mean that you are shy and timid like men."
"Shy and timid like men?" It was really a joke. I became very nervous, when I found that my companion was not Sister Sara, but a stranger. Oh, what a fool had I been to mistake this lady for my dear old friend, Sister Sara.
She felt my fingers tremble in her hand, as we were walking hand in hand.
"What is the matter, dear?" she said affectionately. "I feel somewhat awkward," I said in a rather apologizing tone, "as being a purdahnishin woman I am not accustomed to walking abut unveiled."
"You need not be afraid of coming across a man here. This is Ladyland, free from sin and harm. Virtue herself reigns here." (read the full text)
* * *
Voltairine
DeCleyre
A selection from “The Gods and the People” by Voltairine de Cleyre (1891) transcription from Anarchist Archive
Voltairine de Cleyre (1866-1912) was an American anarchist who was well known as an author and orator. She wrote and spoke extensively on the matter of gender equality.
The rights?-Ah ! the right to toil, That another, idle, may reap ; The right to make fruitful the soil, And a meagre pittance to keep.
The right of a woman to own Her body spotlessly pure, And starve in the street--alone! The right of the wronged--to endure !
The right of the slave--to its yoke, The right of the hungry--to pray, The right, of the toiler--to vote For the master who buys his day !
You have sold the sun and the air, You have dealt in the price of blood, You have taken the lion's share While the lion is fierce for food!
You have laid the load of the strong On the helpless, the young, the weak! You have trod out the purple of wrong;-- Beware where its wrath shall wreak!
"Let the voice of the People be heard! O-- " You strangled it with your rope, Denied the last dying word While your Trap and your Gallows spoke!
But a thousand voices rise Where the words of the martyr fell ; The seed springs fast to the Skies Watered deep from that bloody well!
Mao Zedong wrote extensively on the rights of women, but his work on this particular subject is often overshadowed by his philosophical and military writings. This early work by Mao brought much needed attention to the practice of arranged marriage in semi-feudal, semi-colonial China.
A person's suicide is entirely determined by circumstances. Was Miss Chao's original idea to seek death? On the contrary, it was to seek life. If Miss Chao ended up by seeking death instead, it is because circumstances drove her to this. The circumstances in which Miss Chao found herself were the following; (1) Chinese society; (2) the Chao family of Nanyang Street in Changsha; (3) the Wu family of Kantzuyuan Street in Changsha, the family of the husband she did not want. These three factors constituted three iron nets, composing a kind of triangular cage. Once caught in these three nets, it was in vain that she sought life in every way possible. There was no way for her to go on living; the contrary of life is death, and Miss Chao thus felt compelled to die....If, among these three factors, there had been one that was not an iron net, or if one of these nets had opened, Miss Chao would certainly not have died. (1) If Miss Chao's parents had not had recourse to compulsion but had yielded before Miss Chao's free will, Miss Chao would certainly not have died; (2) if Miss Chao's parents had not resorted to compulsion but had permitted Miss Chao to explain her point of view to the family of her future husband, and to explain the reasons for her refusal, and if in the end the family of her future husband had accepted her point of view, and respected her individual freedom, Miss Chao would certainly not have died; (3) even if her parents and the family of her future husband had refused to accept her free will, if in society there had been a powerful group of public opinion to support her, if there were an entirely new world where the fact of running away from one's parents' home and finding refuge elsewhere were considered honourable and not dishonourable, in this case, too, Miss Chao would certainly not have died. If Miss Chao is dead today, it is because she was solidly enclosed by the three iron nets (society, her own family, the family of her future husband); she sought life in vain and finally was led to seek death...
Yesterday's incident was important. It happened because of the shameful system of arranged marriages, because of the darkness of the social system, the negation of the individual will, and the absence of the freedom to choose one's own mate. It is to be hoped that interested persons will comment on all aspects of this affair, and that they will defend the honour of a girl who died a martyr's death for the cause of the freedom to choose her own love...
The family of the parents and the family of the future husband are both bound up with society; they are both parts of society. We must understand that the family of the parents and the family of the future husband have committed a crime, but the source of this crime lies in society. It is true that the two families themselves carried out this crime; but a great part of the culpability was transmitted to them by society. Moreover, if society were good, even if the families had wanted to carry out this crime, they would not have had the opportunity to do so...
Since there are factors in our society that have brought about the death of Miss Chao, this society is an extremely dangerous thing. It was capable of causing the death of Miss Chao; it could also cause the death of Miss Ch'ieh, Miss Sun, or Miss Li. It is capable of killing men as well as women. All of us, the potential victims, must be on our guard before this dangerous thing that could inflict a fatal blow on us. We should protest loudly, warn the other human beings who are not yet dead, and condemn the countless evils of our society... This article is for Thomai, K., Z. and for my friend Clara Statello. These are the women I admire.
The following article was written for publication by WPI in the early January 2009 edition (issue number 98) of their official Farsi-language magazine, Kargare Kommunist.
The continuing struggle in Greece
On the night of December 6, 2008 at around 9:00 PM, 15 year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos was gunned down in the Exarchia district of Athens, Greece. He was murdered in the street without mercy and without cause, the victim of a government which regularly exercises wanton force with relative impunity in an effort to suppress dissent and maintain the prevailing social order of the day. The executioner in this case was a police officer, 37 year-old Epaminondas Korkoneas, who, with the aid of one or more accomplices, arbitrarily and unilaterally imposed a death sentence on an unarmed and defenseless boy. Perhaps Korkoneas and his cronies thought his position as a cop placed him above suspicion and outside of the bounds of human decency. It’s possible that he believed that the death of one free-spirited teenager would be lost among the cumulative brutality of everyday life on the streets of one of Europe’s most populous cities. Maybe he thought his actions would be well-concealed by the nighttime darkness. But people would soon know the truth of the matter. The police on the scene tried to justify the shooting by claiming they were defending themselves against an attack. But the witnesses on the scene contradicted the claims made by the cops in their cover story and as the witnesses came forward to tell the truth of the matter, a grieving and angry public took notice.
Alexandros "Alexis" Grigoropoulos (1993-2008)
The gun blast that killed young Alexis was truly a shot heard ‘round the world.
As news of the murder of Alexis spread throughout Athens, the righteous anger of the Greek people gave way to collective opposition and mass action. On December 7, students took to the streets to demonstrate against police and government abuses. The murder of Alexis was the breaking point for thousands upon thousands of students who were already angry about government corruption, budgetary excesses and a campaign to privatize higher education. The massive outcry against all sorts of new and old repression in Greece was met with fear and aggression on the part of the Greek government, who acted quickly in their attempts to suppress dissent. Through the use of provocation and extreme force, the police forces hounded and attacked demonstrators, escalating the conflict and inciting violence in the streets of Athens.
The Greek people showed their solidarity with the students in Athens by taking to the streets throughout the country. In Thessaloniki, Naupolio, Patras and numerous other cities, students and workers engaged in empathetic demonstrations against a government which has marginalized itself through its own incompetence and arrogance. Such expressions of support were not just confined to Greece, as citizens marched in solidarity with the Greek people through the streets of Germany, Italy, Russia, Spain, Denmark and the Netherlands. Even the people of Turkey – whose government is historically at odds with that of Greece – organized demonstrations in support of the people of Greece in their struggle against injustice.
The bourgeois media has been all too selective in their coverage of the events in Greece. Mainstream television newscasts are certainly happy to show buildings and cars ablaze, but they seldom show footage of the police conduct which precipitates such events. Even on the day of the funeral of Alexis Grigoropoulos, police harassed mourners as they walked peacefully in the boy’s funeral procession. Moreover, recent photographic evidence suggests that police agents – some armed with truncheons – have infiltrated demonstrations posing as students on more than one occasion, subsequently inciting unrest and violence from within the demonstrations themselves, thus providing the government the opportunity to portray demonstrators as reckless and unruly.
The real story unfolding on the streets and in the universities of Greece is being told through progressive and independent media outlets and through user-generated Internet forums and networks. It is, of course, unfortunately true that violence has occurred in the streets of Athens since the murder of Alexis, but whenever people rise up to challenge their oppressors, it is seldom an orderly or gentle affair. It has been said time and again with complete accuracy that “a revolution is not a dinner party.”
Contrary to the wishes of government officials, the demonstrations in Athens and throughout Greece have not subsided even in the face of police suppression and a government-sponsored anti-student propaganda campaign. A general strike against police and government abuses was initiated on December 10, allowing workers across the country to show solidarity with the students in defiance of the floundering Greek government. The student unions acted as a vanguard in this particular area, taking on the effort to plan and organize the strike. Teachers struck for two days and university lecturers for three days. Even the union of white-collar workers at the Commission of Competition (a service of the Finance Ministry) staged a three-hour strike on December 9. As of December 18, protests continue with sustained fervor throughout Athens, from the historic Acropolis to the gates of the Greek Parliament.
Over the course of the last century, the Greek people have endured repression and brutality in the most extreme forms imaginable, and in each instance they have triumphed through indomitable spirit and resolute determination. From the brutal years of the Metaxas dictatorship to the invasions and occupations by fascist armies during the Second World War to the draconian rule of the Military Junta, the Greek people – led by workers and students – have resisted tyranny, meeting force with force and fighting injustice and exploitation at every turn. The present situation, which originated in Athens and has spread throughout Greece with the might of a prairie fire, is a bold new chapter in the ongoing struggle of the Greek people.
Mike B. resides in the Midwestern United States. He maintains regular contact with many family members and friends throughout Greece. Mike has been an administrator for the Marxists Internet Archive (http://www.marxists.org) since 2001.
Thousands of protesters have attacked banks and shops in Athens and Greece's northern city of Thessaloniki, angered by the police's killing of a teenager.
[...]
After a lull in the fighting on Sunday morning, youths left the National Technical University of Athens, known as the Polytechnic, and joined thousands of leftist demonstrators and anarchists on a march towards the police headquarters on Alexandras Avenue.
They passed close to where 15-year-old Andreas Grigoropoulos was shot dead on Saturday. One banner called the police "murderers".
One protester told the BBC he had been greatly angered by the actions of the police.
"It's not the first time. They always kill people - immigrants, innocent people - and without any excuse," he said. "They murdered him in cold blood."
The unrest, the worst in several years, has spread throughout the country
"I think [the violence] is justified. Peaceful demonstrations cannot get a solution to the problem."
The scene inside a long, low-slung factory on this city’s North Side this weekend offered a glimpse at how the nation’s loss of more than 600,000 manufacturing jobs in a year of recession is boiling over.
The company, which was founded in 1965 and once employed more than 700 people, had struggled in recent months as home construction dipped, workers said.
Workers laid off Friday from Republic Windows and Doors, who for years assembled vinyl windows and sliding doors here, said they would not leave, even after company officials announced that the factory was closing.
Some of the plant’s 250 workers stayed all night, all weekend, in what they were calling an occupation of the factory. Their sharpest criticisms were aimed at their former bosses, who they said gave them only three days’ notice of the closing, and the company’s creditors. But their anger stretched broadly to the government’s costly corporate bailout plans, which, they argued, had forgotten about regular workers.
“They want the poor person to stay down,” said Silvia Mazon, 47, a mother of two who worked as an assembler here for 13 years and said she had never before been the sort to march in protests or make a fuss. “We’re here, and we’re not going anywhere until we get what’s fair and what’s ours. They thought they would get rid of us easily, but if we have to be here for Christmas, it doesn’t matter.”
[...]
At a news conference Sunday, President-elect Barack Obama said the company should follow through on its commitments to its workers.
(M)ore than 4000 students protested at Tehran University. Their chants included "Ahmadi-Pinochet, Iran will not become Chile!", "Death to the dictator", "Free all political prisoners!", "University is the last barricade", "Students die but will not be humiliated" and "Mr. President, the student movement will stand until the end!" A large number of students from other universities and colleges in the capital, including Polytechnic (Amirkabir), Industrial University, Abbaspour, Science and Technology and Rajai joined the protest.
Read more: "Students Rally For Democracy In Iran" from CBS News This link is especially for the American "progressives" who have asserted to me that Students' Day doesn't exist because they have never seen the mainstream media cover it.
The Islamic Republic of Iran executed 10 prisoners earlier this week, once again underscoring both the brutal nature of the current regime and the need for continued international attention to the plight of scores of political prisoners who remain under threat of long-term incarceration and the imposition of death sentences. Farzad Kamangar is one of those political prisoners.
Please join with the thousands of trade unionists and human rights defenders around the world who are mobilising in defence of Farzad Kamangar, an Iranian Kurdish teacher and trade unionist who is at risk of execution.
Education International received information from reliable sources that on 26 November Kamangar was taken from his cell 121 in ward 209 of Tehran's Evin prison in preparation for execution by hanging. However, the latest information is that he is still alive and was able to meet with his lawyer on 27 November for the first time in over two months. His situation remains precarious nonetheless.
Kamangar, aged 33, was sentenced to death by the Iranian Revolutionary Court on 25 February 2008 after a trial which took place in secret, lasted only minutes, and failed to meet Iranian and international standards of fairness. His lawyer, Kahlil Bahramian, said: "Nothing in Kamangar's judicial files and records demonstrates any links to the charges brought against him." Indeed, Kamangar was initially cleared of all charges during the investigation process.
Education International, the International Trade Union Confederation, the International Transport Workers Federation, Amnesty International and LabourStart are appealing to the Iranian authorities to commute the death sentence and ensure his case is reviewed fairly.
Click here to send a message of support for Farzad Kamangar.
The following is adapted from a series of releases and posts by Freedom and Equality Seeking Students (FESS) We have just been informed that Mr. Davood Bagheri, a member of the "Freedom and Equality Seeking Students" has attempted to commit suicide while in prison. The unbearable conditions of his detention and the inhumane treatment he has suffered at the hands of the Turkish detention guards pushed Davood into deep despair prior to his suicide attempt.
Davood fled Iran months ago in the wake of severe repression following the Students Day crackdown in December 2007, but shortly after his arrival in Turkey, he was arrested for "illegal entrance" and he has languished in custody for the past four months. He is presently held in the Aderneh Prison hospital and it is believed he is in critical condition.
We call on all human rights organizations and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees to urgently intervene to save the life of Davood Bagheri.
Freedom and Equality Seeking Students (FESS) (supported by Friends of FESS)
Yet another release! To members of Friends of the Equality and Freedom Seeking University Students of Iran
Mike B. June 5 at 9:58am
According to some friends who are close to the situation in Iran, Ali Kantouri was released on May 25, 2008, on $150,000 bail. He is second accused in the case of the Equality and Freedom Seeking Students, and he is currently awaiting trial.
Aluta continua! M.
The Call for Supporting the Campaign to free Davood Bagheri, Iranian activist Imprisoned in Turkey
To members of Friends of the Equality and Freedom Seeking University Students of Iran
Clara Statello Today at 3:55am
Active member of the Freedom and Equality Seeking Students Movement, Davood Bagheri was forced to flee Iran on winter 200…, after the recent wave of crackdowns on the group by the Islamic government's Intelligence Service agents. Mr. Bagheri arrived in Turkey with the intention to seek asylum where he was captured by the police before he was able to inform UNHCR about his condition in that country. He has been kept in Aderna’s refugee camp under horrific conditions since.
It is in our best knowledge and belief that the Turkey government and the police have acted against Amnesty International’s Refugee Commissary’s Laws and Regulations. Freedom and Equality Seeking Students urge all Human Rights activists and all who believe in social justice and the rights of people who under the threat of their country of origin seek refuge in safer parts of the world, to join this campaign and help us free him from the refugee camp detention center. Davood Bagheri has been treated harshly and brutally in this camp since he was taken into custody. He has attempted suicide in the camp where detainees take their own life as the shortest way to free themselves from the horrors and their hopeless situation in that center.
Freedom and Equality Seeking Students
Sign the petition below and pass it on, please. It's urgent!
The grim news from Iran is that student and activist Ali Kantouri has been sentenced to 15 years in prison as a result of his political activities. Kantouri participated in the National Students’ Day demonstrations of December 2007 and, like a number of his fellow left activists, he was persecuted for his activities and was subsequently arrested, tortured and detained for an extended period of time over the course of the last two years.
With my attention divided amongst a host of real life and net-based endeavors, I have been slow to comment on the 
A few months ago, Iranian student and activist Peyman Piran finally escaped persecution in Iran after enduring a protracted campaign of political persecution. He left his home in hopes of being granted political asylum in a more progressive country.
To members of Friends of the Equality and Freedom Seeking University Students of Iran
