Call to organize an International Forum against Political Persecution and Repression

From one end of the planet to the other, the working masses are organizing the struggle in defense of their gains and their rights, against the barbaric consequences of the capitalist crisis that are being dumped on their backs. Uprisings, strikes, and mass mobilizations in recent years have confronted these attacks from capitalist governments, from mass strikes in Europe to rebellions in the Middle East and Latin America. From the mass street struggles in Argentina in 2017 and in the USA in 2020 to the struggle of the Palestinian resistance against imperialism and Zionism and the massive international solidarity movement created around it.

But also from one end of the planet to the other, these struggles and the organizations that the masses set up to wage them immediately become the object of the most ruthless persecution by capitalist governments that attack the right to strike, to organize and to protest and unleash the most implacable political persecution and McCarthyism.

With the deepening crisis of the capitalist social system as a whole - in particular since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the outbreak of open war between NATO and Russia in Ukraine - a growing race to inter-imperialist war on a global scale has taken shape, which requires the intensification of repression also as a preventive measure. In the history of capitalism, the preparation of wars has always corresponded to the brutal restriction of democratic freedoms (where there were any), and this is happening now.

Organizations fighting against the genocide of the Palestinian people are persecuted and accused of being “anti-Semitic” by the accomplices of the criminal Netanyahu government, which include countless neo-nazi groups. To wage their war in the service of the Russian and NATO oligarch capitalists, Putin and Zelensky have practically eliminated any vestige of democratic law in Russia and Ukraine, starting with the right to strike. In Western countries, a systematic war of propaganda and ruthless repressive measures against emigrants and immigrants is underway, with the adoption of deportation plans against those who are presented as internal enemies.

All over the world, capitalist governments persecute the environmental protests of the people against capitalist plundering of our habitat and, to justify the unresolved persistence of the crisis, they scapegoat the “privileges” of minorities, promoting the attack on their rights and their organizations. Thus, they seek to criminalize movements for the defense of women's rights, black people, Latinos, Muslims, and LGBTQ+ people, to make them appear as responsible for the economic disaster and the growing impoverishment of the living conditions of each capitalist nation and to justify the growing fascist tendencies. Many of these governments (Milei, Trump, etc.) even toy with the formation of paramilitary groups to repress popular protests.

Democrats and pro-fascists, progressives and conservatives, “leftists” and far-rightists, all capitalist governments practice this persecutory and repressive policy. Under Starmer and the Labour Party in Britain, a campaign to deport immigrants has just been launched, aligning with the agenda of Trump's pro-fascist government. In Germany, the “democratic right” of the CDU has just subscribed to the immigration policy of the far-right AFD. In France, Macron has savagely repressed all strikes and protests by the labor movement against his plans to adjust and reform the pension system. The genocidal war of Zionism against the organizations of the Palestinian Resistance that are fighting to win the elementary right to national existence would not have been possible without the unconditional supply of bombs from the Democratic government of the progressives Biden and Blinken.

Bourgeois nationalist and pro-fascist governments are, of course, deeply repressive. In Meloni's Italy, the road to an ultra-repressive, police state took a decisive step forward with the approval of "security" law last October in one of the two chambers of Parliament. In Argentina, Milei has targeted the Polo Obrero and the piquetero movement that fights against the main consequence of the capitalist crisis, unemployment, and illegally putting its main leaders on trial. In Turkey, while hypocritically proclaiming his support for the Palestinian cause, the nationalist Erdogan represses and imprisons militants of the Kurdish liberation movement and socialists who oppose his anti-worker and national oppressive program. In China, the CCP regime rests on unlimited authoritarianism that ensures the stability of the conditions of super-exploitation endured by the world's most numerous working class. In Cuba, Nicaragua, Peru, and Venezuela, repression of the worker’s struggles and left opposition is the norm and there are a growing number of political prisoners.

The repressive policies of capitalist governments, the tendency of bourgeois states to sweep away the most basic democratic rights and even to acquire increasingly authoritarian, police and fascist traits, can only deepen at the same rate as the crisis continues, as the super-exploitation of the working masses intensify, and with them the class struggle, and - mainly - to the extent that the race to rearmament and towards a new inter-imperialist war accelerates.

While resorting to institutional and formal channels of complaint and exposure is valid, the repressive offensives of capitalist governments will only be defeated by the mobilization of the masses, using the methods of struggle and organization that the working class has developed throughout its history.

For this reason, we, the undersigned organizations, consider it essential that political, social, and human rights organizations willing to speak out and actively mobilize against this global repressive offensive coordinate their actions so that the denunciation of the persecutions against organizations, their militants,and leaders is heard in all corners of the planet. As a step on this path, we are organizing an “International Forum Against Political Persecution and Repression”, to be held online on April 26th. We call on all organizations willing to take up this task jointly to participate in preparing this Forum and making it a success.

Our intention is to create an effective network to fight against the persecution of working-class organizations, in solidarity with Palestine, against militarism and militarization of all aspects of social life, the environmental catastrophe, and against any attack on political freedoms and living conditions. Therefore, we invite political, union, and human rights organizations interested in co-organizing the forum to participate in a virtual planning meeting on March 21, and all those who wish to participate to sign up and present a short summary of the cases of repression or political persecution they want to use the forum to denounce. We are convinced that the urgent need for working class solidarity against state repression needs building a united front across existing political differences that exist within our class to strike back together as one.

To contact: [email protected]

 Initial organizers:

Communist Liberation (Greece), MLPD Marxist Leninist Party (Germany), PO Workers Party (Argentina), SEP (Turkey), SWP Socialist Workers Party (Great Britain), TIR Revolutionary Internationalist Tendency (Italy).