Thursday, March 06, 2008

International Day for Osanloo

The International Day for Osanloo today surpassed all my expectations. Never in the last 28 years have I ever witnessed such an organised and truly international day of action for an Iranian dissident.

I bumped into Owen Tudor, TUC's international secretary, in the park cafe just outside the Islamic Republic embassy in London. He introduced me to two delegates from the Federations of Independent Trade Unions of Russia with 28 million members, who had come to London for the event. I was asking Evgeny Sidorov, the international secretary of the Federation, about the Soviet years and he was telling me how the union was operating in those years, when Owen interrupted us and showed me an email he received on his blackberry, "45000 leaflets were handed out for Osanloo in Japan, demonstration in support of Osanloo in Lahore, and even in Ethiopia...". I was pleasantly surprised at the extent of this day of action and I was glad to be a small part of it as I was glad to see members of CIS who had turned up to support the efforts of the international trade unions.

A red double decker bus with huge posters of Free Osanloo, kept driving past the participants and more importantly past the Embassy of the Islamic Republic. This is just what we should do, we should reach out to the world and mobilise the international public opinion in support of the pro-democracy movement in Iran.

It was an exceptional day, despite all the best efforts of well funded Islamic Republic apologists and promoters, the dissidents in Iran are not forgotten.

15 comments:

Azarmehr said...

The ITF can provide photos of Mansour Osanloo and will be distributing pictures of the March 6th event. A JPEG of an English language leaflet prepared especially for the day can also be sent to you on request to Dawson_sam@itf.org.uk

Anonymous said...

This is super quick report Pokin! Well done.

Anonymous said...

Very impressive!

Anonymous said...

potkin jan en ham video dirooz

http://youtube.com/watch?v=SFZ91wdKitk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siOgM-qRr2k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4WoWRc0caY

Winston said...

It's great!

Anonymous said...

Azarmehr, do you have an email? I have been trying to write you.

Azarmehr said...

Send your email as a comment and have do not publish as its first line. I will then email you.

Anonymous said...

potkin agar khasti like youtube ra estefade koni enha ra be jaye dishabi ha estefade kon

hey guys
please use these kinkes. the one in my last e-mail are not working properly.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c18OkMJjRsY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dgy93D9_TU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxBCAKE5nyU

Anonymous said...

How wonderufl. Thanks.

serendip

Anonymous said...

Well done again and thanks for turning up. You are like a tank that keeps going!

Anonymous said...

سپاس بيكران از همه نهادهاي كارگري كه در اين همايش جهاني شركت كردند و سپاس از ايرانياني كه در اين همايش شركت كردند. لطفا ديگر كارگران زنداني را هم از ياد نبريد

bbrz said...

This is the best news I've heard this week. Brought tears in my eyes. God bless them all.

Sohrab said...

Nicely done!

Winston said...

Were Marxist idiots present in this thing too?

Azarmehr said...

Workers Communist Party, Hekmatists and some English Marxist groups, who have not gone to bed with the Islamists were there, and in fact they were more of them than us. We were the only non-Marxist Iranians there.

Other British pro-IRI Marxist groups like the SWP for example, were absent as usual, too scared to upset their "anti-imperialist" allies :)