Weekly Worker 587 Thursday July 28 2005

Letters

PCSU strikes

Dave Spagnol’s letter (Weekly Worker July 21) in response to Tony Reay’s article, ‘No lead from the Socialist Party’ (July 8) contains some inaccuracies and omissions that need to be addressed.

Firstly Dave fails to identify himself as a spokesperson of the Socialist Party. Secondly the 13-to-one vote in favour of strike action in the department for work and pensions (DWP) London region was not for a one-day strike, but a campaign of discontinuous London-wide strike action to be launched with a one-day strike. Some are deliberately trying to confuse the issue by suggesting it will end there. The two-to-one vote was for extended localised action.

The actual turnout of members participating in the car park meetings was not poor, as Dave claims, given that these were held off premises, in members’ own time during a peak leave period. In any other circumstances the left would be pushing for the action to go ahead on such a mandate. It is a shame that Dave Spagnol on behalf of the Socialist Party attempts to rubbish this.

On a minor point, Dave refers to comments attributed by Tony Reay to Mark Serwotka in the article. In a conversation I had with the general secretary he rightly stated that the results from the car park meetings were brilliant.

Much of this, however, is a red herring. The real point is, why have PCSU members in the DWP in London not been balloted for strike action in protest at some 2,000 job cuts? Also, why has the Public and Commercial Services Union not taken any members out on strike since November 5, almost nine months ago? Dave would be better off replying to these points - as it is the Socialist Party that dominates the leadership of the PCSU, they must take responsibility for the lack of action and support given to those wishing to fight back against the employer.

Socialist Caucus comrades have been the prime movers of the London-wide strike strategy, but this has not been counterposed to localised action, as Dave suggests. The only office in London that has voted for indefinite action has been Harrow - an office where the local leadership are members of Socialist Caucus. The reason regional-wide strike action has been pushed is because of the seriousness of the cuts programme in London and because of the absence of DWP group-wide action.

It is also worth noting that the SWP have serious differences with the Socialist Party approach to the campaign. In Socialist Worker, Phil Pardoe, a member of the DWP group executive, writes: “There is an enormous mood for action. But the union is delaying a ballot... Where cuts are announced, there should be ballots in local workplaces and across the government departments” (July 16).

For the record I am a member of the Socialist Caucus group that Dave is so keen to criticise. I am also the PCS DWP London regional organiser and like Tony Reay have full knowledge of the facts of the campaign and the delaying tactics of the Socialist Party within the union.

Charlie McDonald
personal capacity

Non-white

Like all Londoners I was horrified by the terrorist bombings on July 7 and then again on July 21. I am a regular user of public transport and felt the attack came very close to home. On the second occasion the explosion itself took place right here in Hackney.

I believe that the emergency services and the general public have responded magnificently to these attacks. However, I do share the public’s concern about the shooting in Stockwell. I was shocked that an unarmed man could have five bullets emptied into his head in full view of the public for no other reason than being non-white, and thus suspect, and that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I accept that there will be occasions where the police will have to shoot at suspected terrorists and there will be tragic accidents. However, I think we need to look closer at the procedures employed by police in this case and the intelligence they based their actions on. I want to be reassured that this tragic death was completely unavoidable.

I have made clear to local police that fear of terrorism should not mean that a shoot-to-kill policy on non-white young men, who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, is adopted. In these difficult times the police may well have to fatally wound suspects but it should be on the basis of better procedure and intelligence than appears to have been the case in relation to the tragic shooting in Stockwell. I intend to continue to work closely with the police in Hackney in their efforts to protect the public as well as improving community relations.

We cannot have a situation where young non-white men feel they are at the mercy of a shoot-to-kill policy by the Met because they happen to fit the profile of a terrorist in a superficial way, for instance by carrying a rucksack. A repeat of the Stockwell incident will lead to a complete breakdown in the relationship between the police and young black and muslim men. This will make fighting terrorism much harder.

There are no excuses for terrorism, but there is a political context. Politicians have to acknowledge that British and American foreign policy in relation to Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East have embittered muslims around the world. I, along with many organisations and foreign policy specialists, warned that the war in Iraq would lead to an upsurge in terrorism and this has proved to be the case. I believe we should be tough on terrorism and tough on the causes of terrorism, but realise that terrorism is not an ideology in itself, but a methodology. We need to look at the deep-rooted geo-political and social reasons why people take up such a desperate and murderous methodology.

The so-called ‘war on terrorism’ should not lead to all of us losing our liberties and to indiscriminate use of violence by the authorities. I will take every opportunity to raise all of these issues with the government minister responsible and in parliament.

Diane Abbott
Hackney

Red wine

John Rees, Respect national secretary, is reported to have said: “However horrific the bombings in London on July 7 and however important it is to secure the safety of the public, there can be no excuse for the police adopting a shoot-to-kill policy which guns down innocent people in cold blood. This is precisely the crime for which we hold the terrorists responsible. The police in a democratic society have a duty to act with higher standards. They should be trying to diminish the climate of fear, not add to it.”

The Socialist Workers Party beggars belief these days. Is the SWP still made up of middle class students who think they’ll rebel a bit when they are young? They’ll settle down later, in their 30s, drink red wine with comrades after watching a really good piece of radical cinema, get local government/state jobs, and secretly yearn to become part of the mainstream. Socialism becomes a lifestyle. They become conservative. This happens to other groups as well, maybe even yours.

When I was a member of the SWP in the 1980s and 90s, the sorts of stuff Rees comes out with now would have been laughed at, and quite rightly. I was a grumpy young man, and now I’m a grumpy old man.

Chris Duke
email

Scots bobbies

I was interested to read the letters on policing for the G8 in Scotland that appeared in the last two issues of the Weekly Worker. Both the G8 Legal Support Group and Sally Kimber pointed to the arbitrary and high-handed manner in which the police abused their powers in Edinburgh, Stirling and elsewhere (July 14, 21).

However, I note that Scottish Socialist Party national convenor Colin Fox has picked up on an aspect of policing that both your correspondents seem to have missed. Speaking earlier this month outside Edinburgh sheriff’s court, where SSP members had gathered to protest against the double arrest of youth organiser Donnie Nicolson, comrade Fox stated that both arrests had been made by officers of the Metropolitan Police, who had been transported up by the thousand for the G8 protests.

While officially Lothians and Borders police were in overall charge of operations, it was, said comrade Fox, the Met who were “dictating and enforcing policy”. According to the Morning Star, “when the SSP complained to Scottish police about the actions of the Met and the victimisation of Mr Nicholson and other party members, many senior officers agreed with them, making ‘scathing’ remarks about the English force’s actions” (July 9).

It appears that the abuses should be laid at the door of the “English” police, not the UK state’s forces of repression as a whole, including those based in Edinburgh. Clearly Scottish police officers, in line with the population north of the border, are far more progressive than their English counterparts and are totally opposed to all acts of repression.

Yet another reason why Scots should not waste another moment in breaking away from those backward Sassenachs. In an independent Scotland the capitalist police would always act in a fair and impartial manner.

Adam Kenneth
email

Like Nazis

We are facing mass eviction and the bulldozing of our homes. Please come and help us protect our women and children from Basildon council, which is acting like the Nazis did in Germany when they started killing off all the gypsies.

The council - by just three votes - has decided to spend £3 million to destroy our entire community of over 1,000 people. Yet they won’t spend a penny on alternative land for us, though we have found two places they could buy.

We are peaceful people, but they are driving us to extremes and now our backs are against the wall - the walls of the homes we have built and paid for.

For the first time, our children are in school, more than 200 of them, and our sick folk are getting the medical treatment they need. But this will all end and we will be living at the side of the road again - if the bully bailiffs succeed.

Please come and join us! Come and be human rights monitors and join the ‘human shield’ called for by Corin Redgrave and help us defend our homes and our human rights (we have taken legal advice on what we can do).

We have just been given notice to quit by midnight on July 31 or face eviction by force.

Richard Sheridan
ustiben.2@ntlworld.com

Gays executed

Mahmoud Asgari (16) and Ayaz Marhoni (18) were hanged in Edalat (Justice) Square in the city of Mashhad, in north east Iran on July 19. The islamic fundamentalist regime in Iran enforces sharia law, which dictates the death penalty for gay sex: hanging, stoning, beheading or dropping from a high place.

The teenagers admitted (probably under torture) to having gay sex, but claimed in their defence that many young boys had sex with each other and that they were not aware that homosexuality was punishable by death. Prior to their execution, the teenagers were held in prison for 14 months and severely beaten with 228 lashes. Their length of detention suggests that they committed the so-called offences more than a year earlier, when Mahmoud was 15 and Ayaz was17.

Ruhollah Rezazadeh, the lawyer of the youngest boy (16), had appealed that Mahmoud was too young to be executed and that the court should take into account his tender age. He was quoted by the IRIN news agency as saying that “the judiciary had trampled on its own laws”, explaining that the Iranian courts usually commute death sentences on children to five years jail. Despite his pleas, the supreme court in Tehran ordered Mahmoud to be hanged. Three other young gay Iranians are being hunted by the police in connection with the same so-called crime, but they have gone into hiding and cannot be found. If caught, they will probably also face execution.

News of the two executions was reported by the Iranian Students News Agency on July 19. It stated that they were hung for the crime of sodomy. A later news story by Iran Focus, which claimed to be based on this original ISNA report, said the youths were executed for raping a 13-year-old boy. But the ISNA report does not mention any rape or any 13-year-old boy. A report of the executions on the website of the banned, underground democratic opposition movement, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, also makes no reference to rape.

The allegation of rape may be a trumped-up charge to undermine public sympathy for the youths (a frequent tactic by the islamist regime in Iran). Or it could be that the 13-year-old was a willing participant but that Iranian law (like UK law) deems that no person aged 13 is capable of sexual consent and that therefore even consensual sexual contact is automatically deemed in law to be statutory rape.

The two teenagers are said to have confessed to gay sex. It would be very unusual for anyone in Iran to make such a confession voluntarily, given the violently homophobic nature of the society and the public stigma and shame of admitting to same-sex acts. People who admit to gay sex in Iran risk disownment by their family, possible ‘honour killing’ by neighbours, and jailing, whipping and execution by the state.

The allegations of rape appear to have only surfaced after adverse publicity in the international media and condemnation by human rights groups in Iran and abroad.

It is, of course, possible that the original ISNA report was incomplete and that it inadvertently failed to mention the rape claims. But usually the Iranian authorities openly boast about rapists being hung as a deterrent and to win public sympathy. So if the teenagers were guilty of rape, why was it not mentioned in the original news report? Even if the youths were guilty of rape, public execution of minors is unjustified and extreme.

This is just the latest barbarity by the islamo-fascists in Iran. The entire country is a gigantic prison, with islamic rule sustained by detention without trial, torture and state-sanctioned murder. According to Iranian human rights campaigners, over 4,000 lesbians and gay men have been executed since the ayatollahs seized power in1979.

Altogether, an estimated 100,000 Iranians have been put to death over the last 26 years of clerical rule. The victims include women who have sex outside of marriage and political opponents of the islamist government. Last August, a 16-year-old girl, Atefeh Rajabi, was hanged for “acts incompatible with chastity”.

Britain’s Labour government is pursuing friendly relations with this murderous regime, including aid and trade. We urge the international community to treat Iran as a pariah state, break off diplomatic relations, impose trade sanctions and give practical support to the democratic and left opposition inside Iran.

Peter Tatchell
Outrage

Iraq constitution

The Iraq draft constitution quietly eliminates the minimal rights women had under the previous 1959 Personal Status Law. Although this law was partly based on islamic sharia, it included much reform that secured minimal standards of human rights for women, such as preventing marriage for female children and making polygamy more difficult for men - a practice that is allowed under sharia, in addition to beatings, stoning, flogging and forced veiling.

The draft constitution indicates in its article 14 the elimination of the current law and refers family laws completely to islamic sharia and to other religions in Iraq. In other words, it leaves women vulnerable to all inequalities and social hostility in addition to designating females as second-rate citizens or semi-humans.

Since the beginning of the occupation, the US administration has recognised Iraqis according to their ethnic/nationalist and religious identities. This predetermined polarisation of society around its most reactionary forces has resulted with a most lethal weapon, which is a government of division and inequality - a potential time bomb for a civil war that has already started. Furthermore, the only mutual agenda for the parties in power is one of oppression, bigotry and misogyny, in addition to representing the US occupation interests.

The enemies of the people on the panel of those writing the constitution have decided to give life to resolution 137. This resolution isolates Iraqis from the modern world and turns Iraq into an Afghanistan under the Taliban, where oppression and discrimination of women is institutionalised under sharia.

We have witnessed all kinds of atrocities under this occupation. Now the US intends to force a constitution that turns 13 million women into semi-humans. We need your support in rejecting a constitution that gives way to decades of silent massacres against women. Write open letters to the US administration, to its allies, and especially to the UN. Remind them that women’s rights cannot be the price for a hideous democracy of racism, ethnicity, religiosity, sectarianism and misogyny.

Yanar Mohammed
Organisation of Women’s Freedom in Iraq

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