This motion was passed at a quorate GUCU branch meeting 26.10.2022
This branch notes:
- The latest uprisings in Iran which began in protest against the murder of a young Kurdish woman, Mahsa Jina Amini, while in the custody of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s so-called “Morality Police” for allegedly wearing “inappropriate attire”.
- Her name has become the symbol and “codeword” of a countrywide uprising against the theocratic dictatorship that has brutally suppressed the freedoms, democratic self-determination, and flourishing of Iranians for more than four decades.
- Their demands for basic human rights, dignity, and justice have been met with a brutal crackdown by the authorities.
- Students’ peaceful protests and civil disobedience in universities and schools have been faced down with violence, killings, abductions, and disappearances. University campuses have been forcibly attacked and occupied by the regime’s security forces.
- Workers in the oil and gas sector have gone on strike in support of “the people’s struggles against organised and everyday violence against women and against the poverty and hell that dominates society.” This has taken place in the wake of an acute increase in labour protests in response to declining living standards as the depredations of crony capitalism and inhumane Western sanctions are increasingly felt across society at large.
This branch believes:
- The uprising in Iran is fuelled by a deeper sense of political disenfranchisement, repression, and socio-economic deprivation.
- Neoliberal reforms, systemic corruption, privatisation, precarious labour and unemployment have created frustration, and comprehensive and crippling economic sanctions imposed by Western powers have exacerbated and worsened conditions for ordinary Iranians, fuelling inflation, unemployment and shortages of medicine.
- Iranian women have played a leading role in rejecting state interference and encroachment upon their social and private lives; the slogan of the movement “Women, Life, Freedom” is a popular chant demanding a better life for all, free from inequality, poverty and political/cultural repression and violence.
This branch resolves:
- To stand in solidarity with the millions of brave and courageous protesters who have taken to the streets chanting “Women, Life, Freedom” and “Death to the Dictator”, and calls on students and workers around the world to join us in condemning the actions of the Islamic Republic of Iran
- To support the call by Iranian academics to establish a grassroots initiative in support of the movement for “Women, Life, Freedom” (www.faculty4wlf.com).
- To work with other unions including SU to give voice and support teach-in sessions to discuss and debate the revolutionary movement and uprising in Iran.
- To create an international network to support Iranian protesters and dissidents including students and academics who have come to harm or face intimidation and threats at the hands of the Islamic Republic
The struggle of Iranians is our struggle!
Proposed by Gholam Khiabany
Seconded by Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi