Campaign Iran

New website

2008-03-04T15:54:00.000-08:00

Campaign Iran has moved:

http://www.campaigniran.co.uk/

Campaign Iran fundraiser

2008-01-27T11:11:00.000-08:00

*ONLINE SALES NOW CLOSED*

An Evening of Music and Poetry from Iran and Friends

Music from
Pejman Azarmina - Santur, with Narges Torshizi -Tombak (Persian)
Sam Fathi - Tambur and Daf (Persian)
Sameh Moussa - Guitar (Arabic and Flamenco)
Somaye - Tombak and voice (Jazz and Persian)
Jose Navarro - Guitar and flute (Peruvian)
Varol Uzun - Tambur and voice (Turkish)

Poetry from
Soheila Ghodstinat - Iranian poet
Xanthe Gresham - Story Teller (Shahnameh)

Buffet of Iranian food

7pm Friday 22nd Feb
Brunei Gallery, SOAS, Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG

International demonstrations against war: March 15th - 22nd 2008

2007-12-24T03:14:00.001-08:00

1,200 delegates from the global anti-war movement met at a conference on December 1st and agreed to worldwide co-ordinated demonstrations on the the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war calling for all troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan and no attack on Iran.

http://www.theworldagainstwar.org

The World Against War declaration made at the conference is translated into a number of languages including Farsi.

Iranian anti-war music video

2007-12-24T03:07:00.000-08:00

Abjeez is an Iranian music band based in Sweden. Below is the music video to their anti-war track DemoKracy:

Early Day Motion against attack on Iran

2007-12-24T02:59:00.000-08:00

The following Early Day Motion (EDM) was submitted by Labour MP for Islington North Jeremy Corbyn and calls for the government to publicly oppose a military attack on Iran:

IRAN AND THE MIDDLE EAST 18.12.2007
Corbyn, Jeremy

That this House notes the findings of the International Atomic Energy Agency-Iran work plan of 27th August and the IAEA's report of 15th November clarifying and clearing a number of major outstanding issues in relation to Iran's past nuclear activities; notes the judgement of the recent US National Intelligence Estimate that Iran does not have an active nuclear weapons programme at present; is strongly concerned about the continued threats of a military attack against Iran which could start another catastrophic war in the Middle East; urges immediate, direct and unconditional negotiations between the US and Iran on all points of dispute; and calls on the Government to oppose publicly any military intervention by the US and/or Israel in Iran.

Meeting: Iran and Global Issues

2007-12-03T13:29:00.000-08:00

Thursday 13th December 2007, 7-9pm
A panel discussion with Habibollah Peyman, an eminent Iranian Islamic intellectual.

Chair:

Ziba Mir-Hosseini Lond Middle East Institute

Speakers:

Habibollah Payman

Tehran University: 'Islam and Violence'

Marzieh Mortazi Langroudi

Azad University: 'Religion and Violence Against women'

Modjtaba Sadria

Agha Khan University: 'Iranian Modernity and Modernity in Iran'

Roger Hardy

BBC World Service: 'Iran as a Regional Power'

organised by Campaign Iran

Lecture Theatre, V211, SOAS, Vernon Square, London WC1X 9EL

World Against War conference

2007-12-03T12:16:00.000-08:00

Speaches from the World Against War conference including from Marzieh Martazi Langroudi (from Mothers For Peace, Iran) and Elaheh Rostami Povey (from Campaign Iran) during the Iran session:

Around 1000 delegates from the global anti-war movement attended the event on Saturday Dec 1st and a declaration was made announcing plans for global demonstrations in March 2008.

Day of Action

2007-12-03T11:55:00.000-08:00

Hundreds of people took part in the Day of Action against an attack on Iran across the country on November 24th (November 22nd at universities):

Wandsworth

UCL

Bristol

Don't Attack Iran! 24 November day of action

2007-11-21T07:27:00.000-08:00

From the Stop the War website:

As Bush and Brown continue to threaten Iran with war, the Stop the War Coalition has called a national day of action to say 'Don't attack Iran'.

Across the country Stop the War groups will be holding rallies, die-ins and other activities.

An attack on Iran would destabilise the Middle East further. Far from the promised surgical strike, an attack on Iran could kill thousands if innocent people. We are asking people to pledge to take action in the event of an attack.

Hackney will be holding a 'die-in' and Portsmouth Stop the War have called a rally in the centre of town. If you would like to organise an event in your town, or need to find out what's happening in your area, get in touch with Stop the War today.

In Universities and Colleges across the country, students will be taking action on Thursday 22 November.

Banner painting, die-ins and demonstrations are the order of the day on campuses, and the pledge wil be important in building support for action in the event of an attack.

Students from Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan Universities will march throught the city, whilst students in London will co-ordinate a 'die-in' to bring home the horrific realities of war.

Stop the War conference

2007-11-04T04:09:00.000-08:00

Around 500 delegates and observers from 118 different groups attended Stop the War's annual Conference on Saturday. Conference launched a day of action against an attack on Iran on November 24th (November 22nd in the colleges), and a major mobilisation for the World Against War International Peace Conference in London on December 1st.

Speaker's included Annas Al Takriti from the British Muslim Iinitiative, the Guardian's Seumas Milne and Lawyer of the Year Phil Shiner. Somaye Zadeh spoke on behalf of Campaign Iran. See a video of the speech below:

plus John Rees, Seumus Milne and Abbas Edalat below:

Model motion for trade unions

2007-10-20T06:37:00.000-07:00

This model motion for British trade unionists opposing sanctions and war on Iran has been formulated by Campaign Iran and CASMII. This is to be circulated amongst trade unionists inside Stop The War and CND with a view to getting trade union branches and/or conferences to take a stand against war and sanctions on Iran.

We would urge all trade union members who are against an attack on Iran to take this to their trade union branches. For those who would like it to be submitted to their trade union conferences, please check deadlines for submissions as these may well be months before the conferences actually take place.

For further advice please contact us on 07729 464497. We are pleased that a similar motion was passed at BECTU conference in 2006 (see second motion on the page) so the precedent has already been set.

Model Resolution on Sanctions and War on Iran

This Branch/Conference notes that:

1) There are indications that a military attack on Iran has been planned and could be executed before George Bush leaves office in 2008 and that this military attack would target Iranian military, economic and civilian infrastructure and might include the use of tactical nuclear strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

2) The IAEA has found no evidence of a weaponisation programme in Iran and the US intelligence agency, The National Intelligence Estimate, has estimated that Iran would be at least 10 years away from obtaining a nuclear weapon should it decide to follow this path. However the US, supported by the UK and France, are persisting that Iran cease uranium enrichment or face more sanctions, with the military option kept ominously open.

3) Over a million people died as a result of sanctions on Iraq.

4) All the completely discredited accusations of supporting terrorism, links to AlQaida and clandestine WMD programme, used to make the case for war on Iraq, are now being used against Iran.

5) As the nuclear accusations are losing credibility, in a shift of focus, the US has been systematically attempting to implicate Iran in Iraq, to justify an extension of the war across the border into Iran.

This Branch/Conference believes:

1) As tragically evidenced in Iraq, sanctions against Iran hurt ordinary people, damage their economic and civil institutions and are prelude to war.

2) Iran’s nuclear issue should be returned from the Security Council to the IAEA and resolved through continued negotiations and not sanctions or war.

3) Sanctions, foreign state interference, destabilization programme and any military intervention or its threat are greatly harmful to the cause of human rights, democratic rights and the civil society organisations in Iran and have therefore been opposed by the leaders of the vibrant democracy movement inside the country.

This Branch/Conference resolves:

1) to demand from the Brown government to:
i) support the IAEA-Iran work plan and allow it time to work
ii) to withdraw British troops from the Iranian border and publicly oppose the military
option against Iran.
iii) to end its support for any new security council sanctions and EU sanctions against Iran.

This Branch/Conference also calls on the TUC to publicly oppose sanctions and war on Iran

Notes to the proposer (Oct 2007)

George Bush’s speech on 28th August, authorizing the American military to “confront Tehran’s murderous activities”, and the deployment of British troops to the Iranian border to guard against Iran’s “proxy war” in Iraq, signify a qualitative shift towards war by the US and a systematic building towards a casus belli for another illegal pre-emptive war.

Currently, IAEA and Iran are engaged on a work plan with strict time limit until November 07 to clarify all the ambiguities over Iran’s nuclear programme which the West purports as the basis of its suspicions of a weaponisation programme in Iran The first findings of the work plan announced the clearance of Iran’s plutonium experiments – labeled by the US as evidence of weaponisation - and verified non-diversion to weaponisation and peaceful use of all declared nuclear activities in Iran. However the US, supported by the UK and France, is persisting with its demand that Iran must cease uranium enrichment or face another round of sanctions whilst the threat of military strike remains ominously present.

Thousands march despite ban

2007-10-10T12:39:00.000-07:00

by Somaye Zadeh (Campaign Iran)

Last Monday's Stop The War demonstration was a landmark day. Around 5,000 people turned up on a weekday to demonstrate to bring the troops home from Iraq and to march down to parliament in what we all thought would be a protest in defiance of the police, who had banned us from marching to parliament square. However at the eleventh hour the ban was lifted and the demonstration turned into a celebration of people power, exemplified by the chant "Whose streets? Our streets!"

Campaign Iran was well represented: Our banner was carried by students from SOAS at the head of the 200 strong student feeder march (the first student feeder march there has been since 2003) and our chant of "Gordon Brown here we come, Don't you dare attack Iran" put the issue squarely at the centre of the demonstration.

Various speakers at the rally in Trafalgar Square also warned Gordon Brown against attacking Iran. Our own Mehri Holliday drove the issue home when she spoke from the platform warning against both war and sanctions on Iran: "Sanctions are a prolonged war and cause severe suffering, and rage ultimately, giving way to political violence." she said "Sadly we don’t need to imagine this, we have witnessed it happen in Iraq . Half a million children died in Iraq as result of sanctions, and sanctions on Iran would certainly contribute to a long-term destruction of grass roots civil society. Mr. Brown, abandon the US’s discourse of ‘we want to liberate you, but we have to bomb you first’, it is much more sophisticated to be on the side of global peace and regional stability in the Middle East, you must abandon the expansionist and barbaric policies of the neoconservatives in the United States."

We marched down to parliament square with those thoughts in our heads, handing out over 1500 Campaign Iran postcards to equally concerned demonstrators, but safe in the knowledge that our parliamentarians will not be able to escape the fury of the British population in the case of an attack on Iran by banning us from the streets.

Demonstrate Monday Oct 8th!

2007-10-06T03:26:00.000-07:00

ALL TROOPS OUT NOW
OUR RIGHT TO PROTEST

Assemble 1pm Trafalgar Square For Rally

Speakers include Tony Benn, Brian Eno, Mark Thomas, Walter Wolfgang, George Galloway MP and Ben Griffin (ex SAS trooper)

MARCH TO PARLIAMENT

We will be marching to Parliament on Monday 8 October, despite the government insisting that our protest is banned. Human rights group Liberty says our march is legal and we will be exercising democratic right to protest peacefully on the day Gordon Brown makes his long awaited speech on Iraq to the House of Commons.

Stop the War has been flooded with messages of support and a commitment to join our protest, including from Shami Chakrabarti (Liberty), Tony Benn, Walter Wolfgang (Labour Party NEC, Bob Wareing MP, musician Brian Eno, comedian Mark Thomas, author Iain Banks, poet Benjamin Zephaniah and playwright David Edgar.

We urge everyone who has opposed the British government's support for George Bush's war, and who agrees that our right to peaceful protest must be defended, to join us on Monday.

WHY YOU SHOULD JOIN US:

In the run up to this much anticipated general election, the leaders of each major political party have claimed to champion our civil liberties. No doubt they will now unite to ensure that this peaceful demonstration takes place.
SHAMI CHAKRABARTI, Director of Liberty

The authority for this march derives from our ancient right to free speech and assembly enshrined in our history. It is only fair to tell you that the march will go ahead, in any case, and I will be among those marching.
TONY BENN, in letter to the Home Secretary

A protest demanding all the troops out now is of national significance. To try and stop that protest is a major interference with free speech. The march should go ahead whether it is formally permitted or not.
WALTER WOLFGANG, Labour Party NEC

The government want to bury the issue of their disastrous war. They will not succeed. We will be marching in our thousands on Monday.
LINDSEY GERMAN, Convenor Stop the War Coalition

Stop the War Coalition

US prepares for war on Iran

2007-09-30T15:04:00.000-07:00

by Naz Massoumi / Source: Socialist Worker

The drums of war against Iran were beating stronger and faster this week.

The neocons around George Bush want to escalate the war in the Middle East in an attempt to extricate the US from the Iraq quagmire – and see an attack on Iran as the best way to do this.

The justification for such an attack has shifted of late – from stopping Iran’s nuclear programme to retaliation for Iran’s alleged support of resistance movements in Iraq and Lebanon.

And the targets have also broadened, with US warmongers talking about a general attack on Iran’s infrastructure as opposed to “surgical strikes” directed at nuclear facilities.

Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited the US this week and was met by a feverish wave of jingoistic hysteria. “The Evil Has Landed” read the New York Daily News front page. The New York Post described him as a “madman”.

This follows a week of steadily building hostility towards Iran coming from the US administration and its allies.

On Friday of last week the US state department hosted a meeting with British, French, German, Russian and Chinese officials to try and agree increased sanctions against Iran.

The US also wants other countries to agree to blacklist Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Last month Bush designated the Revolutionary Guards a “terrorist organisation” – a move widely seen as preparing the legal justification for a military attack on Iran.

Meanwhile France’s new foreign minister Bernard Kouchner – one of the few French politicians to back the US-led attack on Iraq in 2003 – warned that the French should “prepare ourselves for the worst”, adding that “the worst is war” against Iran.

The warmongering comes as the occupation of Iraq becomes ever more unpopular in the US.
As veteran anti-war radical Noam Chomsky puts it, “They’re desperate. Everything they touch is in ruins. Under these circumstances, they’re unpredictable. They might go for broke, and hope they can salvage something from the wreckage.”

An attack on Iran would be catastrophic for the people of Iran and the wider Middle East region. It threatens to plunge the world into flames. But this is a price Bush’s neocons are willing to pay in their pursuit of imperial power.

None of this makes war inevitable – but it does mean the global anti-war movement must redouble its efforts to end the US-led occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and bring all the troops home.

© Copyright Socialist Worker (unless otherwise stated). You may republish if you include an active link to the original and leave this notice in place.

Considering a war with Iran

2007-09-06T12:36:00.000-07:00

The consequences of entering a war with Iran will be catastrophic regionally and globally. Their political and environmental impact, and the human suffering and loss of lives and displacement, are not a matter of prophesy. Rather, they are are fully predictable and, moreover, avoidable. Any such attack on Iran would add exponentially to the horrifying developments and experiences of the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq.

In a comprehensive and detailed analysis, Dr Dan Plesch and Martin Butcher make clear the gravity of the state of affairs with regard to any form of military attack on Iran. As the authors put it:

"This study uses open source analysis to outline what the military option might involve if it were picked up off the table and put into action. The study demonstrates that an attack can be massive and launched with surprise rather than merely a contingency plan needing months if not years of preparation."

This document is essential reading and can be found on the following site.
http://www.rawstory.com/images/other/IranStudy082807a.pdf

Iran experts admonish the Financial Times

2007-07-18T10:26:00.000-07:00

The Financial Times has refused to publish the following letter:

Dear Sir,

In the context of the widely-reported ambitions of US neo-conservatives to mount a military attack on Iran, we, Iranian/British academics, are disappointed to note that your article (”Al-Qaeda linked to operations from Iran“, by Stephen Fidler, dated 8th July 2007) adds the Financial Times to the list of “reputable” newspapers prepared to engage in amplifying the drum beats of a new and bloody war in the Middle East.

Would you, for example, have led with the headline: “Al-Qaeda linked to operations from Pakistan”? This would have been far closer to the truth, but no one in the White House is seeking war with Pakistan.

Your report is hardly “news”. The Guardian splashed precisely the same story – also citing anonymous officials – on May 22, alleging that “Iran is secretly forging ties with al-Qaeda elements and Sunni Arab militias in Iraq”.

Indeed, the FT is but the last of the British “quality” newspapers, with the exception of the Independent, to run recent front-page stories claiming that Iran is a major factor in the Iraqi insurgency.

However, any Middle-East expert would have told you that the likelihood that the Shia Iranian regime is backing Sunni extremists in Al-Qaeda is slim in the extreme. Of course Iran has its clients in Iraq, as everyone knows, they are members of the Iraqi government. Why should Iran back the mortal enemies of SCIRI and the Da’wa?

Only this weekend, the Associated Press reported that the leader of an al-Qaeda umbrella group in Iraq threatened to wage war against Iran unless it stops supporting Shiites in Iraq. Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the group Islamic State in Iraq, said on a website commonly used by insurgent groups that his Sunni fighters have been preparing for four years to wage a battle against Shiite-dominated Iran, the agency reported.

In the run-up to the disastrous invasion of Iraq, Pentagon and MoD officials manipulated a credulous media to plant “news” stories bolstering the case for war. We are witnessing in the same process in the British press once more, this time pushing for military action against Iran.

Briefings with unnamed officials are a classic means by which governments and the military place their propaganda in the media. It is the ABC of journalism to treat such sources with scepticism.

When the New York Times on February 10 splashed with “Deadliest Bomb in Iraq is Made By Iran”, sourced from those same unnamed officials again, the newspaper was widely condemned for resurrecting the “Judith Miller school” of journalism. It is a sad day indeed if the Financial Times has also failed to learn the lessons of the Iraq WMD fiasco and is adding its voice and reputation, wittingly or unwittingly, to those of the Pentagon hawks.

Signatures:

Dr. Mehri Honarbin-Holliday, Canterbury Christ Church University

Dr. Elaheh Rostami-Povey, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

Dr. Ziba Mir-Hosseini, London Middle East Institute

Professor Haleh Afshar, OBE, University of York

Professor Abbas Edalat, Imperial College, University of London

For the love of oil

2007-06-29T12:11:00.000-07:00

Iranian author Mehri Honarbin-Holliday reminds us of the nefarious history of the crushing of Iranian democracy by the US and UK, and describes the peaceful efforts of a new generation of Iranian youth to build it in the beleaguered circumstances of a sanctions-imprisoned Iran

Ask Iranians why they profoundly despise, distrust and condemn any form of intervention, presence and action by the British and the Americans, and they will document vividly the links in the century-old chain of events through which the governments of these two countries have sought illegitimate political dominance in Iran since the discovery of oil in 1908.The cycle of mistrust, based on direct military and political undermining of Iran’s sovereignty, is firmly etched on the psyche of the Iranian nation, and looms large in the common experiences of millions of present-day Iranians.

Iran’s oil was swiftly recognised as the energy source of a new political and industrial era for Britain at the turn of the 20th century.Winston Churchill is quoted as having said that British battleships floated with Iranian oil to victory in the first world war. In 1944, three years after the British army invaded Iran and exiled the shah to Africa, he insisted that the British government ought to secure a ‘golden share’, or a right of veto, in the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), to make sure that the Iranians understood that the AIOC was an extension of the British government operating in Iran.

The nationalisation of the oil in 1951 by Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddeq, was met with more than just hostility by both British and Americans. While the British boycotted Iranian oil temporarily, the CIA engineered an overnight coup d’etat on 19 August 1953, ousting Prime Minister Mosaddeq in favour of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. It was not only Iran’s oil that they wanted – they also wanted Iran in order to secure an assured strategic military base and presence in the region for their new imperial ambitions. This strategic importance is made clear in the current distribution of US bases in the region, at a time when the US is not permitted to colonise Iran.

The 1979 Islamic revolution shattered US domination.The occupation of its embassy in Tehran by a group of militant students who took 53 political staff hostage left the Americans profoundly irritated and led to a campaign of demonisation of Iran and all things Iranian.Within a short period Saddam Hussein was appointed the US’s undisputed agent and bully-in-chief in the region. He was armed and encouraged to impose a devastating eight-year war on Iran from 1980 to 1988.

Every Iranian will tell you how the US and British governments silently and shamelessly watched this catastrophic aggression unravel, pointing the finger at Saddam’s 5,000 British and US-made tanks, 4,000 armoured vehicles, 7,000 artillery and 500-plus aircraft, which sent more than one million Iranians to their graves and displaced, economically damaged, and chemically contaminated millions more.The memories of this war are fresh in the hearts, minds and daily lives of Iranians.

Economic and psychological captives

The US imposed broad economic sanctions against trade with Iran in 1979, further freezing over $8 billion of Iranian assets. Since the early 1980s,Washington has sought to isolate Tehran, and has in recent years accused the Iranian government of developing nuclear weapons and sponsoring terrorism. Iran, however, asserts that it has voluntarily revealed its uranium enrichment programme at Natanz since February 2003 and has invited the UN’s nuclear monitoring body, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) specifically, to carry out inspections. Further assertions have been made by Iran repeatedly that it has not breached its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and that its intentions are peaceful, producing low level enriched uranium for the nuclear fuel industry.

Since then the Bush government has made military threats and imposed bilateral and unilateral sanctions against Iran, all justified with a demonising and damning rhetoric. While US-based oil companies and their sub-contractors have been blocked from doing business with Iran, wider sanctions under UN resolution 1747 were passed on 24 March, targeting the transactions of Iran’s state-owned bank, its arms exports and the activities of its Revolutionary Guards.

Like any modern country, Iran needs new resources to sustain development and reconstruction in the post Iraq-Iran war era.Maintaining economic stability and confidence is crucial. The sanctions add up to economic and psychological warfare against the Iranian nation. Sanctions will create more inflation in the foreign currency market, ultimately damaging the infrastructure of the trade. They undermine business confidence, damaging the economy and harming the poorest and most vulnerable in society. Sanctions addressed at the Iranian government will destroy the lives and livelihoods of the Iranian people, school children, students and families.The Iranian government is being bullied by the west for acquiring the nuclear knowledge that has been made readily available to several of Iran’s neighbours.

The Iranian people are being punished by widening sanctions, and by an unprecedented presence of the US and British war machines in the Persian Gulf pointing their guns at the Iranian nation and, in the process, at any socio-political movement from within Iran towards a more comprehensive form of democracy and civil society.

The future is female

Ask Iranians about the prospects of democracy and civil society in Iran, and they will tell you about the daily struggle they endure to build it.They will also tell you that the seeds of a democratic civil society must be planted by Iranians themselves, free from the prescriptive forms imported by US and British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A new, critical and reflective generation of Iranians has emerged since 1979. It must be nurtured and be given space to grow. Despite the tough socio-economic conditions, the ongoing singular and local interpretations of Islam, and the routine shifts of power and manoeuvring between the Supreme Leader and his appointed Council, the hardliners, the reformists and even oppositionist factions within the regime, this new generation is very much alive and kicking.

It is as visible as it is expressive in its social behaviour. It possesses a particular voice, a particular and profound desire for social justice, and a particular sense of struggle for political reform. It is engaged in a quest for a more progressive civil society, projecting diverse views and behaviours, in which individuals might be full and active participants regardless of their gender, form of religious beliefs and cultural heritage.

According to the 2004-2005 national statistics published by the education ministry, there are over 15 million Iranians in primary and secondary schools. There are three million students in universities, many entering the urban space from remote towns and villages for the first time and creating intra-national cultural exchange and cosmopolitanism.

Significantly, 65 per cent of this student body are female.Apart from seeking to educate themselves, these young women subtly and persistently signify ideological difference through altering dress codes, and examine traditional and familial expectations by pursuing all kinds of interaction with their male counterparts in the cities and towns. Like the older generation of women in urban Iran, they seek to become economic partners and hold and develop careers in the civil service, higher education, medicine and health care, law, journalism, and politics, with all the limitations that the latter offers.

If desire, curiosity and a sense of struggle are among the markers of a youth movement, then young women in Iran specifically embody that movement. This is particularly significant in discussions about the development of a civil society. Can the west really afford to continue sanctions against Iran and take up military action against a people who are alert and have ideas and require stability and peace to take those ideas forward from within? Is it really prepared to squeeze and isolate Iran further, and in doing so destroy its people’s aspirations and development, simply because it needs the oil?

www.mehri-honarbin-holliday.com
Mehri Honarbin-Holliday is a leading member of Campaign Iran.
This article first appeared in Red Pepper

Rageh Omaar speaks out against war

2007-06-29T12:04:00.000-07:00

Rageh Omar introduced his acclaimed documentary Inside Iran to over 300 people in Camden on June 14th. At a meeting organised by Campaign Iran and Camden Stop The War, Rageh set out his motivation behind producing the film: “I wanted to show the other Iran from the one usually shown by journalists constrained to ‘news’ stories, I wanted to go behind the rhetoric”.

Inside Iran follows Rageh around Tehran, from the upper class suburbs of North Teheran to the working class south where his Taxi driver Majid showed him a glimpse of Iranian family life, and in between met a wide range of Iranians, including Binyamin the pop star and 3 amazing women active in running their won business, making films and running an NGO for children with cancer.

At the meeting, Rageh emphasised that he had set out to make a documentary about people, about ordinary Iranians, and that part of the motivation behind that was the lack of ‘human’ images which came out of Iraq before the invasion. “The news was always about Saddam, perhaps if in the West we had been shown what ‘average’ Iraqis were like we would have had a clearer understanding of the impact of military action”.

Campaign Iran fully supports this view and believes that ordinary Iranians like those depicted in the documentary will suffer the most from war and sanctions. Well done Rageh.

View the film below: