THE Committee for Defence of Iranian Peoples Rights (CODIR) has a long history of supporting the struggle of the people of Iran. What are its current priorities?

GL: The Islamic Republic of Iran has been struggling with economic, social and cultural crises for a long time now. The theocratic dictatorship can’t offer any solution to the political, economic, environmental and cultural challenges the country is facing.

High unemployment and inflation, inequality, unprecedented environmental degradation, brain drain, repressive social conditions, rampant corruption, as well as the continuing threat of war are the realities facing Iran today.

Iran has a young population that has lost any confidence in the Islamic Republic to deliver jobs, security, housing, opportunities to start a family, or lives free of fear and uncertainty. They reject the perpetually looming threat of war. They desire peace, democracy, and a forward-looking vision on the part of the government.

Our role in CODIR is twofold. Firstly, to offer solidarity in their struggle for peace, protection of the environment, stemming of the disastrous brain drain, and an end to the enforcement of reactionary policies that are a blight on their lives.

Secondly, to counter those who use the nature of the Iranian regime to advance Western imperialist intentions, through sanctions, war and the threat of external regime change. The future of Iran is for the Iranian people alone to decide.

Over coming months, we plan to expand upon our educational and awareness-raising work to expose the realities of life in Iran for women, youth, workers and intellectuals, and to build a solidarity with those on the sharp end of injustice in Iran, as well as strengthen links between trade unions in Britain and their Iranian counterparts.

Given the restrictions upon trade union activity in Iran, how important is solidarity from trade unions in Britain?

While Iran once boasted one of the largest trade union movements in the Middle East; today trade unions are severely repressed. The state does not recognise unions, and the Labour Code only permits the activities of tripartite “Islamic Labour Councils” which are, by design, dominated by the Ministry of Labour and employers.

However, several trade unions which existed before the 1979 Revolution and which have deep roots in Iranian society have remained active, often in the face of severe risk. The country’s teachers, transport workers, nurses, steelworkers, coalminers, oil workers, and metalworkers and mechanics, among others, have been able to organise workers and lead struggles for fair wages, decent and safe working conditions, proper job classifications, job security, as well as fair working patterns and leave entitlement.

In recent years, the trade union movement in Iran has played a major role in the popular campaign against the dictatorship, with concerted strikes and industrial actions having put the authorities under real pressure.

The solidarity of trade unionists from Britain and elsewhere is a source of encouragement to their counterparts in Iran and sends a clear message to the authorities that the Iranian workers do not stand alone.

How important is the legacy of the 2022-23 Woman, Life, Freedom uprising and its extensive coverage internationally to the way the struggle for women’s equality as well as social justice in Iran is viewed now?

In 2022-2023, the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising laid bare a previously obscured dynamic within Iranian society. Television screens and social media feeds all around the world were filled with the scenes of popular discontent and brutal repression in Iran.

The Woman, Life, Freedom uprising was the culmination of a process that arguably began with the mass protests that followed the rigged presidential elections in June 2009. Before then, despite the efforts of many organisations (including ours) to raise awareness internationally of the repression inside Iran, not much was known about the campaigns or struggles taking place there.

Instead, when the attention and cameras were trained on Iran, the focus seemed to be more on the posturing, blustery rhetoric, and bold positions adopted by the regime in relation to issues both domestic and foreign. There was relatively little nuance regarding the coverage and depictions of Iranian society itself, other than as meek and coerced into compliance by the governing authorities.

The coverage from 2009 to the Woman, Life, Freedom movement has changed that and shown to the world a conscious, engaged, and forward-looking people, hailing from all backgrounds and walks of life, refusing to succumb to conservatism, dogma and reaction and willing to brave the wrath of a brutal dictatorship.

Iran is very much on the front line of unfolding events in the Middle East. How do you see the role of peace activists in supporting the Iranian people?

The overwhelming majority of Iranian people completely oppose the recent brinksmanship and escalation between the Islamic Republic and Israel and reject any notion of war, having borne witness to the horrors of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

However, storm clouds are gathering once with the continued efforts of the Netanyahu regime in Israel to widen the war in the Middle East and drag Iran into a direct confrontation and the likely exacerbating factor on this of the looming Trump presidency.

Certain hard-line voices in the Islamic Republic have also spotted an opportunity to divert attention from the regime’s deep internal crisis by dialling up its adversarial bluster, which risks escalation towards a direct military confrontation.

People should be under no doubt that another war in the Middle East, this time involving Israel’s brutal military and the US’s vast power against Iran, would spell total devastation for the region and its peoples.

CODIR aims to establish effective co-operation with the peace movement in Britain and internationally, aimed at the largest possible protest mobilisation against any war on Iran.

There is a tendency for some in the progressive movement to view developments through the prism of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend.” Given the Islamic Republic’s brinksmanship with Israel, should we regard Iran as part of the anti-imperialist camp?

It’s ironic that while the Iranian people have lost all confidence in the clerical regime in Iran to provide any solution to multi-dimensional crisis wracking the country, some in the progressive movement in Britain and the West nevertheless continue to tout the supposed anti-imperialist credentials of the theocratic dictatorship.

Our counterparts in the Iranian left have a well-developed analysis of the actual nature of the theocratic regime’s policies since its inception. Far from progressive internationalism, the Islamic Republic’s activities in the region have involved a malign and sectarian interference in the sovereign affairs of other countries, undertaken cynically to further its sphere of influence and buttress its own security extraterritorially, often at the expense of genuinely left, progressive and secular forces in the countries concerned.

For nearly 35 years, the Islamic Republic has overseen the unrestrained implementation of a neoliberal economy, including through shock therapy, in accordance with International Monetary Fund and World Bank prescriptions, with disastrous effects for the majority of ordinary Iranian people.

It is also important to bear in mind the Islamic Republic’s long record of repression against anti-imperialist organisations among Iran’s left and progressive forces, as well as the fact that they all remain banned in the country today.

There is no need to make apologies for a reactionary dictatorship in order to oppose US warmongering in the Middle East and external threats against Iran. The future of Iran is for Iranians to decide.