yasmine

On Saturday-Sunday, 14-15

th June 2008 the Campaign Hands Off the People of Iran will hold a weekend school, in University of London Union, Malet Street to discuss issues regarding the threat of war, sanctions and various aspects of the opposition to the the rule of the theocracy, inside Iran.

The weekend school will hold a session War, human rights and ‘humanitarian interventions’; with two speakers , Professor Bill Bowering from the School of Law, at Birkbeck College London University and Dr Mike Macnair, lecturer in law at Oxford University. Professor Bowring who is an a active supporter of the Campaign, practises and teaches law and is the author of many books including:

The Degradation Of The International Legal Order: The Rehabilitation Of Law And The Possibility Of Politics, Social Legislation in Russia and Great Britain, Minority and Group Rights in the New Millennium, Prisons Law and Human Rights as well as numerous academic journals. He is a practising barrister at Field Court Chambers, Gray's Inn, Executive Committee Member of the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales; President, European Association of Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights (ELDH) since 2005; Founder in 2002 and Chair of the International Steering Committee, European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC); Trustee of REDRESS (reparation and compensation for victims of torture) since 1997; Member of the Council of Liberty (National Council for Civil Liberties) .

Dr Mike Macnair is lecturer on History of English Law, specifically on the history of Tort and the history of Contract law, he is the author of many academic articles on Civil Procedure : Land Law : Legal History : Tort : Roman Law as well as many political articles.

On the same day the 'weekend school' will hear from Professor Christine Cooper. She is Professor of Accountancy at the University of Strathclyde , she is a Marxist and acts on the Editorial board of a number of academic journals , including , accounting and the Public Interest (Journal of the American Accounting Association)., On editorial board of Critical Perspectives on Accounting

On editorial board of Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, On editioral board of Accounting Forum and Joint editor of the Journal of the Association for Accountancy and Business Affairs. She is the author of a major article on the administration of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq : US Imperialism in Action: An Audit-Based Appraisal of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq. She will be talking about the extent of the current sanctions against Iran and the role of sanctions in imperialist strategy.

The session on women, entitled ' Can imperialism liberate women in the Middle East? ' will be addressed by Dr Nadje Al-Ali, is a lecturer and director of the Gender Studies Centre at SOAS, University of London. She is of Iraqi-German origin and has recently published Iraqi Women: Untold Stories from 1948 to the Present. She is a founding member of Act Together: Women's Action for Iraq. She will be joined by Azar Majedi who is Chairperson of Organization for Women's Liberation – Iran.

On Sunday the 15th of June, we will hear Professor Machover (Israeli socialist) will give a talk on Iran, Israel , the Middle East and the nuclear question . Professor Moshé Machover was born in Tel-Aviv, studied at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and taught mathematics there before coming t London University in 1968. He was Reader in Mathematical Logic, and later became Professor of Philosophy. He is the co author of many books including Lectures on Non-Standard Analysis ,A Course in Mathematical Logic and Laws of Chaos: A Probabilistic Approach to Political Economy, Set Theory, Logic and their Limitations, and The Measurement of Voting Power: Theory and Practice, Problems and Paradoxes . He has been a lifelong opponent of Zionism and author of many political articles including: The Class Character of Israel, Israelis and Palestinians: Conflict and Resolution, (Israel) Is it Apartheid?... Moshe is a founder member of Matzpen, anti-capitalist and anti-zionist organisation, founded in Israel in 1962 and active until the 1980s.

The session session 'The working class movement in Iran and its response to the economic crisis' will start with an introduction by David Mather who lectures in Sociology at Glasgow Caledonian University. He is the author of many articles on Iran and Afghanistan , including:Making Cars in Iran: Working for Iran Khodro, The Islamic republic and the Iranian left , Invading Afghanistan. He will be looking at the neo liberal economic policies of the Islamic Republic Regime, including privatisation and casualisation and will give examples of workers resistance to these measures.

Given the illusions of many on the International left about the nature of the Islamic regime, the weekend school will have a session on : The 1979 revolution and its aftermath lead by Torab Saleth . Torab Saleth is an Iranian Socialist who was a member of the International Executive Committee of the USFI (United Secretariat of the Fourth International) at the time of the Iranian Revolution and the National Secretary of the Socialist Workers Party of Iran. He was very critical of the USFI's line on Iran and left that organisation in 1984. In exile he was the editor of the journal 'Socialism and Revolution', he is currently on the editorial board of the journal Critique and a prominent member of Workers Left Unity Iran.

The organisers hope the two day event will be informative however after there will be plenty of time for debate.

For more information and regular updates of the program visit

//www.hopoi.org