13.03.2014

End all sanctions, free the prisoners

Now is the time to step up the pressure, writes Yassamine Mather

Catherine Ashton’s first visit to Iran’s Islamic Republic as European Union representative marked the beginning of the second phase of Iran’s negotiations with the P5+1 powers, which, according to both sides, will be far more “difficult and challenging” than the initial phase.

There is still confusion about the results of the interim deal, as well as ambiguity about aspects of it. Over the last few months International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have been granted access to nuclear plants and on January 20 the IAEA reported that Iran has disconnected centrifuge cascades used to enrich uranium to 20% and destroyed its already enriched stockpile of uranium. It has also stopped installing any additional centrifuges, and ended work on the Arak heavy water reactor. However, as far as the future of Iran’s nuclear programme is concerned, there are two interpretations of the initial agreement. Iran’s foreign minister insists that the Geneva agreement of November 2013 accepts Iran’s right to enrich uranium up to 5%, but the Americans deny this.

Nevertheless, in return for these Iranian moves there has been a limited lifting of economic sanctions, including allowing access to $4.2 billion of Iranian cash frozen in foreign banks. In addition sanctions targeting petrochemical industries, precious metals, the auto industry, passenger plane parts and services have been lifted over the last few months. However, most Iranians have yet to see any improvement in their daily lives.

Over the last year of ‘targeted’ sanctions oil exports fell by 60% - equivalent to a loss of around $80 billion. Iran’s currency, the rial, plummeted in value. Inflation increased to 45% and, according to the central bank, the economy contracted by 5.8% last year, to a level not seen since the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. But now a number of countries, including Japan and India, have finally paid for oil imported at the height of the sanctions in 2011 and 2012.

The Tehran stock exchange rose by 130% in 2013, following the new government’s promises of negotiations regarding the nuclear issue. But this hardly showed confidence in the Iranian economy - Iranian capitalists have not been investing in property, or dollar and gold markets, which have been doing poorly, which leaves nowhere else but the stock exchange. While in December 2013 there was record trading, things have fallen back since mid-February mainly due to uncertainty about a long-term deal with the west.

In the last couple of weeks, as events have unfolded in Ukraine, president Hassan Rowhani has come under pressure from Islamic hard-liners, who accuse his government of selling out. Some clerics have gone so far as to say that, had Iran resisted US pressure, Russia would have stepped in to support it, as it did in the Crimea. Others have argued that because Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons it was subsequently invaded.

During Ashton’s visit to Tehran, Benyamin Netanyahu said that she should ask the Iranians about a merchant ship Israel seized last week, which was said to be carrying what Israel described as an Iranian shipment of weapons intended for Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. In late February Israeli commandos boarded and seized a merchant ship in the Red Sea allegedly carrying a shipment of “advanced weapons destined for Palestinian militant groups in Gaza”.

This gave Israel the opportunity to claim that the nature of the Iranian regime had not changed. Israel claimed that rockets with a range of between 90 and 160 km had been shipped into Iran from Syria. Netanyahu claimed: “We are revealing the truth behind the deceiving smiles of Iran.” He claimed that the “international community” wants to “ignore Iran’s ongoing aggression and its part in the massacre in Syria”.

Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, responded in the form of a tweet: “An Iranian ship carrying arms for Gaza. Captured just in time for annual AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] anti-Iran campaign. Amazing coincidence! Or same failed lies.” Whatever the truth, this was by no means an Israeli coup. The ship had been under US surveillance throughout its journey from Iran and it was the US airforce that supplied the Israeli navy with details of the ship’s cargo and its whereabouts.

This week also saw claims from the Qatar-based Al Jazeera that Iran was responsible for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. Of course, many of us who followed the Lockerbie saga have known for a very long time that Iran’s role in this terrible event cannot be dismissed. However, the Al Jazeera documentary presents no new evidence and its timing cannot be a coincidence. Qatar remains one of the main backers of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and in fact Qatar has fallen out with its neighbours over this. Last week Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain withdrew their ambassadors from Qatar following a dispute over its support for MB and other Islamists, including jihadists in Syria. Qatar’s support for sections of the Syrian opposition has also brought it into direct confrontation with Assad’s main backer, Iran, and Qatar is keen to stop further rapprochement between that country and the US.

Unpaid

In late February, the International Monetary Fund visited Iran for the first time in the last three years. Its subsequent report describes the Iranian economy as “weak” and called on the Iranian government to implement “drastic reforms” to stop serious economic decline caused by international sanctions and mismanagement. According to the IMF, if its policies are followed the Iranian economy will instead grow by between one and two percent in 2014.

And Rowhani’s plans for economic reform so as to “ameliorate the conditions for business” are music to the ears of international capital. The implications are clear: increased exploitation, this time with more rigid legal structures, under empowered capitalist managers. Tens of thousands of Iranian workers have not been paid for up to 18 months and very few expect payment in the near future, their daily protests falling on deaf ears. In fact, in Ahvaz, sugar cane workers have not been paid for 20 months, yet they continue going to work every day for fear of losing their jobs in an area of high unemployment.

In the last few weeks there have been workers’ protests at the Mazandaran textile factory, calling for unpaid wages to be made good. In Isfahan workers at the Hadid steel plant demonstrated for the same reason. Workers occupied the Khoramshahr soap factory and prevented the owner from entering. In Bane, workers at the Jahad Nasr company were paid part of what they were owed after a two-day strike.

The state’s response to most of these protests has been as harsh as ever. Security forces have arrested over 20 workers of the Chadormalu mine in the central province of Yazd, including the secretary of the unofficial workers’ organisation. For several months, more than 3,000 workers have been demanding a pay increase compatible with the rate of inflation, as well as overtime which has been unpaid for four months. Despite the arrest of 20 workers “instrumental in launching the initial protests”, the strike continues.

Iran Khodro workers have protested over health and safety following the death of a worker who was attempting to clean a machine, which failed to operate correctly. His comrades walked out and security guards were deployed to suppress the protest.

Meanwhile, labour activists in Iranian jails continue to endure harsh conditions. Reza Shahabi Zakaria, the treasurer of the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran, has been imprisoned on political charges since June 2010. He is currently held in Evin prison. In April 2012 he was sentenced to six years imprisonment by an Islamic Revolutionary Court - five years for “colluding against state security”, and one year for “spreading propaganda against the system”. He has also been fined 70 million rial ($5,700) and banned from all trade union activities for five years. According to his lawyer, the prosecution is seeking to bring a fresh charge of moharebeh (‘enmity against god’) for alleged contact with banned opposition organisations. Shahabi’s health has deteriorated in custody, but prison authorities have denied him appropriate medical treatment. In November 2011 he went on hunger strike, protesting against the prison authorities’ failure to provide him with treatment.

Two other labour activists, Rasoul Badaghi and Shahrokh Zamani, who are already in prison, were summoned to a court in Karaj and informed about new charges. They are accused of inciting prison riots and provoking a clash with guards. Zamani is serving an 11-year sentence for establishing a “socialistic group” and “propagating against the regime”, and now he is be tried once more on a charge of insulting the supreme leader.

On top of all this, the regime is carrying out an unprecedented number of executions - 135 took place between January 1 and February 19. Most of those facing public hanging are charged with drug offences (government officials admit the country has two million drug addicts), as well as rape and murder. Amongst those executed have been some political prisoners, including Hashem Shaabani, a 32-year-old poet from Iran’s Arab community, who was executed last month after a forced confession, filmed on state television, of moharebeh.

Pro-war and regime-change activists have tried to blame Rowhani for the renewed repression in order to undermine the current negotiations. It is true that Rowhani must take some of the blame, but the main source of power is in the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and his team of powerful clerics. Rowhani cannot even get the slot he wants on national radio and television. The head of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting company, currently Ezatollah Zarghami, is appointed by the supreme leader.

Regime split?

Every now and then leaders of the Islamic Republic are reminded that the overwhelming majority of the population are not ‘followers’ of the imam’s line, that a considerable proportion of those who consider themselves Muslims do not practise Islam, they prefer to watch satellite TV and the internet, they drink alcohol and disobey regulations regarding sexual segregation, wearing the hijab, etc.

The reality is that after 35 years the Islamic regime is struggling to control a population of whom 75% percent are aged 25 or under. In December 2013, Iran’s minister of culture, Ali Jannati, admitted that more than 70% of Tehran’s population watch banned satellite channels. Last week Khamenei himself expressing concerns about “current cultural issues in the country” and called on officials to “pay attention to religious and revolutionary culture”. But the next day Rowhani, addressing a symposium on the media, partly blamed Iran’s “closed society” for a “lack of public confidence” and the fact that people follow “foreign information sources”. It was time to “secure freedom of speech”.

A marked difference of opinion, then, from the two leading figures in the Islamic regime. However, at the end of the day both are committed to its survival. The difference is about how best to ensure it: through repression or the acceptance of reality and toleration. Clearly a debate is currently taking place within the regime.

Now is the time to step up the pressure. We must demand that the US and EU end all sanctions with immediate effect, and that the Tehran regime ceases its acts of terror against the population. No more executions! Unconditional release of all labour activists languishing in Iranian jails! Pay workers what they are owed! Full trade union rights!

yassamine.mather@weeklyworker.org.uk