Struggle in Iran's Streets Beyond Elections

Washington DC, DC, June 26, 2009 --(PR.com)-- TRNN Senior Editor Paul Jay talks to Mehdi Kouhestaninejad about the role of Iranian unions in the protests against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administration. Kouhestaninejad is an Iranian trade unionist who has worked with the Canadian Labour Congress and the bus drivers in Iran.

Jay asks Kouhestaninejad for the perspective of the Iranian workers about the election, "What are the Iranian trade unions speaking about the election and the protests?"

"Iranian workers, the same as other Iranians, fought for this fundamental rights [of freedom of expression and freedom of assembly] that we don't have in Iran at this moment," Kouhestaninejad says of the current protests in Iran.

"The question [for] Iranian people...right now is beyond the election. It's not what other source[s] tell them to what's going on and who supports who. It's important for every Iranian in Iran to actually have rights for what basically they asked for [in] the election, even though we know it's not a free election," he says.

He also emphasizes that "what is happening in Iran right now is unique." Despite media comparisons of the protests to civilian movements like the Velvet Revolution, Kouhestaninejad says that "in the streets of Iran" right now the people are practicing "civil disobedience" along the same lines as Ghandi.

"[Iranian workers] are demanding that Ahmadinejad accept that he is not the President of Iran. They are asking that the legitimacy of the leadership is under big question," Kouhestaninejad says.

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