The following comments were made by Fred Halliday at a press conference called to publicise the plight of the 14 SWP 6f two weeks in iran 1 spent meetings, publish critical DOOKS, newspapers, to move This was the being books were by the SaW the major gan being closed by I SaW left-wing against being attacked right-wing Saves, Radio The first point to stress Is unal wis is somelllng which systematically encouraged by the government. The radio, the pro-government press and the speeches of government leaders, foremost among them the Ayatollah Khomeini, have deliberalely encouraged this reaction.
These are not the actions of irresponsible untypical groups. Whether it is committees consisting of well-paid government employees of right-wing hoodlums who attack people streets, they are acting on Socialist Challenge 30 August 1979 Page 10 part of a broad campaign Khomeini/Bazargan regime. next week to gain further support.
dropped, and Bernadette McAliskey stopped.
the direct orders of the goverumell.
This became very clear to me when interviewing government ministers. One of the most powerful people Foreign Minister Yazdi, repeated word by word the kind of slanders against opponents being uttered in the more hysterical press articles and on the demonstrations the streets. It was clear that a decision had keen taken, sometime in the beginning of August, to crush all oppesition. A 300-STRONG picket outside the Iranian Embassy in London last Saturday demanded 'Troops out of Kurdistan! Socialists out of jail!' as against the repression Labour movement support for the release of the HKS 14 has included a telegram from Alex Kitson, deputy general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union and chairperson of the Labour Party's international committee. TUC delegates from the Civil and Public Services Association delivered a letter to the embassy last week protesting the repression against the Kurdish people and calling for the release of the HKS 14. This letter will be circulated at the TUC Congress Amnesty International has cabled Prime Minister Bazargan and the Ayatollah Khomeini calling for the death sentence threat to be has also authorities demanding that the trial be halted and the repression People who were opponents of the government had been victims of repression before that the people the Socialist Workers Party had been arrested in June - but this did not become generalised until the beginning of August.
They are quite willing to accuse their opponents of being agents of the CIA, agents of Israel, etc. When I asked Yazdi for evidence of this he went to his desk and produced a set of files which he waved at me.
These WCEE SAVAK •of the cabled the Iranian SW7.
files on various oppositionists, which he said proved these people were agents of Israel/CIA. The idea that SAVAK files were truthful, that he should be using these same files which were used by the Shah's secret police, was astounding.
The climate of hysteria which Khomeini has added 1o in speeches of the last few days is one which is directed against all opponents of this regime. of the tragic aspects of this is that many of the people who are being imprisoned
THE front page of the now banned opposition newspaper Ahanger flaunts a cartoon showing Khalkali the chief judge of the Islamic Court, in the guise of the notoriousSavak forturer Teherani. The come begun 5,55 flas prisoners are an oil worker, SWP member, national minorities and a Fedayeen.
facing