Dozens of organizations joins the International Forum Against Repression and Political Persecution

Dozens of organizations from around the world join the International Forum Against Repression and Political Persecution

Since being launched, the call to organize an International Forum Against Repression and Political Persecution to be held online on April 26 has garnered the support and commitment of dozens of political, trade union, social, and human rights organizations from four continents and more than 25 countries.

This is an expression of the need to advance in networking to collaborate in the organization of practical solidarity among working-class organizations in the face of repressive advances that are being experienced to varying degrees in all capitalist countries under the impulse of the tendency toward war, political and social polarization, and the attempt by the capitalists to survive their terminal crisis by unloading its effects on the masses in the form of austerity policies and an attack on their historical gains.

Significantly, organizations from Russia, where a representative of the Political Prisoners Support Fund and the magazine Stormbringer will participate, and from Ukraine, where the Ukrainian Workers' Front (Marxist-Leninist) will participate, have confirmed their participation and will speak. Exiled comrades from the post-Soviet left linked to the Left Bloc will also speak from both countries. What imperialism and reactionary governments divide on the battlefield, the working class is working to unite in the framework of the common struggle against the exploiters. Comrades from Azerbaijan will speak about their efforts to organize the Courier union (delivery workers) under very repressive conditions.

In Greece, where two important general strikes have recently taken place, speakers from the political organizations Communist Liberation and OKDE-Spartakos, both from the anti-capitalist left front Antarsya, as well as from the organization OKDE, have confirmed their participation. The union of university researchers, SERETE, as well as the teachers' union, have also confirmed their participation.

In Italy, where there is a huge struggle against the advance of the security law that attacks the right to demonstrate, the Forum has confirmed the participation of the grassroots union SICOBAS, the Libere/i di Lottare network, the November 7th movement of unemployed workers in Naples, and the TIR and Iskra Political Laboratory.

From the United Kingdom, comrades from the SWP and the SP will speak, representing the movement against genocide in Palestine, which is facing police repression and legal persecution under the Starmer Labour government, as well as participants in the campaign against systematic police infiltration of the trade union movement.

From Germany, comrades from the MLPD will speak in a context of growing repression and confrontation with the far right. From Austria, comrades from the RCIT, who have recently suffered court rulings for denouncing the genocide in Palestine.

Comrades from the Socialist Workers Network of Ireland, a member of the People Before Profit coalition, will speak. Members of the Assembly of Argentines in Zaragoza have confirmed their participation from Spain.

In Turkey, where the repressive leap of the Erdogan regime is being confronted by mass mobilizations and intense street fighting, we will have representation from organizations that have been on the front lines fighting and suffering police arrests and raids, such as the SEP and the Alevi Bektashi Federation.

(BYP) of Cyprus—a nationally oppressed country divided since the 1974 Greek and Turkish invasions and situated amid African and Middle Eastern conflicts, and imperialist tension over oil resources in the Eastern Mediterranean—will be joining. They also represent strong opposition to Erdoğan’s political Islamist influence and pressure on the island.

The Slingers Collective of Iranian women who have been promoting the unionization of textile workers and leading the campaign against the death penalty for Sharifeh Mohammadi have confirmed their participation. Representatives of the Hoshino Defense Committee will speak from Japan. The USP organization will speak from Sri Lanka.

Representatives of Namibian Workers United will speak about the repression of trade unionists in Namibia. From Nigeria, where there have been intense struggles against the government and political and trade union organizations are suffering severe persecution, there will be representatives of the Revolutionary Socialist Movement and the Democratic Socialist Movement. We will have reports from South Africa from independent journalists on the repression and murder of activists and trade union organizers.

From the United States, where the Trump government is pushing fascist measures of illegal detention and deportation of hundreds of activists from the Palestine movement and is waging a fierce offensive of layoffs and restrictions on union activity, members of UPTE Members For Palestine, PSC-CUNY, and the political groups UFCLP, Speak Out Now Socialist, and members of the Communist Caucus within the DSA have confirmed their participation.

From Argentina, where the year and a half of the far-right Milei government has been a constant struggle of the vanguard of the working class and youth with the participation of the left, comrades from the Partido Obrero will participate, such as their national deputy Vanina Biasi, who faces criminal charges for denouncing the genocide in Palestine. from the Polo Obrero and other organizations of the Piquetero Struggle Front, which have suffered more than 200 police raids on their neighborhood headquarters and face a scandalous trial that seeks to criminalize the organization of the unemployed, the Plenary of Retired Workers, whose movement against starvation pensions, despite police repression, has moved the country and the world, and the Classist Trade Union Coordinating Committee, which brings together leaders from dozens of militant unions such as Sutna, AGD-UBA, and numerous grassroots teachers' unions. The independent human rights organizations APEL and SERPAJ will be present.

From Mexico, Cecomún, a center for popular communication and collective action, has confirmed its participation, demanding the release of political prisoner Kenia Hernández Montalván, a defender of women's and indigenous peoples' rights, as well as the Revolutionary Action Group. From Costa Rica, pro-Palestinian activist Tatiana Gamboa, who is being persecuted by the justice system, will participate.

 Miriam Villalba, a Paraguayan exile in Venezuela, victim of the plan to exterminate Paraguayan militants and their families, which has led to disappearances and infanticide and is the subject of an international campaign called “Where is Lichita?”, will also participate. There will be representatives from Brazil's Tribuna Classista, Peru's Agrupación Vilcapaza, and Chile's Fuerza 18 de Octubre. From Cuba, the Comunistas organization will participate, which has been denouncing the measures of the Diaz-Canel government that represses and imprisons opponents in order to push through an anti-popular adjustment process. Monica Baltodano, former Sandinista commander and opponent of the repressive turn of Daniel Ortega's government in Nicaragua, will participate.

 Along with the presentation of these hundreds of cases of repression and political persecution, and the preparation of an international dissemination of the reports on the subject, concrete initiatives, campaigns, and the continuation of joint work in practical workers' solidarity and common struggle against repressive states will be discussed. In the coming days, many organizations are still discussing the possibility of joining in. The doors are open to all who understand the need of advancing with the common work of united front action in the defense of the right to organize and struggle of the working class and exploited masses of the world.

Related: https://socialistmiddleeast.com/call-to-organize-an-international-forum-against-political-persecution-and-repression