Statement of the Committee in Defence of Khatoon abad workers (UK): On Saturday 24th of January 2004, the repressive forces of the Islamic regime in Iran attacked a gathering of workers and their families who were protesting against their sacking from a copper foundry factory in Khatoon abad in Kerman province where we witnessed a major earthquake recently. According to the official reports of this attack, which took place from the ground and from the air by helicopter gunship, four people have been killed and more than a hundred people have been injured (the unofficial reports put the figures much higher). Thius is not the first time this barbaric regime has responded with bullets to the just demands of the workers. There have been many other occasions when workers have paid with their lives for their opposition to the anti-worker and neo-liberal social measures of this regime. What is new is the degree of nervousness and viciousness of the Islamic regime in suppressing any opposition to its authority, which is portrayed as the rule of god. This has led to an outcry from organised workers in Iran and an appeal to the international workers movement to condemn the Islamic regime in its brutal repression of workers' basic rights. In response to this appeal and in view of the fact that the repressive forces of the Islamic regime have imposed a military curfew in towns near the Khatoon abad factory in order to crush any further protest, some exile workers and political groups sympathetic to workers' struggles have set up a committee to defend the people of this region against any further atrocities. As a first step we have organised a petition to be signed by all those who condemn this atrocity and would like to pledge their support for their fellow workers in Khatoon abad who have been subjected to this atrocity because they dared to protest against their sacking. Further protest will also be organised which in time will be brought to the attention of the international workers' movement. -Supporters of the Committee in Defence of Khatoon abad workers (UK)> 26 January 2004 Contact: BM Box 2699, London WC1 N3XX [email protected]