Last week Iranian students in London held a series of DicKets to srotes! against the official visit to this country of the Shah's twin sister, Ashraf. Ashraf isn't just the Shah's sister. In 1953 she played an important role in bringing about the ClA-organised military coup wnicn out ine prasant recume uto power and she is a symbol of the corrupt and Daroaric nature or tne iranian dictator ship - she once had a journalist burnt alive in front of her in revenge for articles he had written criticising her.
Furthermore, her invitation to this country came ara time wuen melaniar regime is stepping up repression enormousiv. Last montn tne ranian borce launched a series of raids on the homes of a number of militants, killing 21 of them in the space of three days.
GUN POINT But Iran's huge oil revenues and cheap labour ensured at gun-point by the dictatorship provide a source of large profits for British capitalists. Callachar and his Government are more concerned Ashraf-not just a figurehead with getting the biggest share of this loot into the pockets of British capital ists than with the repression of Iranian workers. They are thus prepared to collaborate in any way they can with the Iranian regime.
to lay the foundation stone for a library which sne is tinancing at wadham College with several hundred thousand pounds out of the many millions she has robbed from the Iranian masses. In return for the money, Wadham is naming the library after her and has made he an honorary fellow of the college.
Asnrat and une ranian recime usually prefer burning books and torturing people for reading them to building libraries. The Iranian capital, Tehran, has only five public libraries with a total of 150,000 books for a population of four million. She is having the library built at Wadham solely for the sake of prestige and propaganda, and the college autorities are neiping ner in tnis.
A packed meeting of students in Wadham the day before voted to oppose Last Saturday Ashraf visited Oxford to take a similar stand this collaboration and to picket the college during Ashraf's visit. It also voted to boycott the facilities being built with the money donated by Ashraf. More than 300 people, including a large number of Iranian students, picketed the college entrances unt following day, forcing Ashraf to enter trom a building site at tne back The initiative taken by the Wadham students is a good example of how students can concretely take up the fight against repression in Iran. At the moment ine raman rogume is vine to establish closer ties with colleges and universities all over Britain, in order to De able to send students selected on tne basis of their political loyalty as well as keeping a closer watch on iranian stu- Party dents in this country. Students should oppose all such links with the Iranian dictatorship and fight to pledge the NUS For more information contact Committee Against Repression in Iran (CARI), Box 4, 142 Drummond St.,
WEEKLY