The brutal torture and murder of Hadi Salih, who impressed all with his basic decency and dignity after decades of oppression and exile when he briefed MPs last year, is rightly damned by Johann Hari (Opinion, 7 January). It is also a watershed moment when progressives who have shown a “sneaking regard” for the so-called resistance should shed such lethal illusions. What worries Labour Friends of Iraq is that Hadi’s murder is part of a strategy to eliminate the leadership of the emerging Iraqi labour movement. Nozad Ismail, the president of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions in Kirkuk, has twice escaped the assassins and receives daily threats. We have launched an urgent global appeal but the “resistance” doesn’t have a postbox and doesn’t listen to rational argument. One way of overcoming this form of fascism is to mobilise decent people to say “they shall not pass”.
Hadi Saleh tribute in Guardian
Hadi’s brutal murder. Friday January 14, 2005
We unreservedly condemn the brutal murder of Hadi Saleh, the international secretary of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, at his home in Baghdad on the night of January 4. He was tied and blindfolded and tortured before being forced to kneel and strangled by electric cord. Hadi was a brave patriot who stood up for workers’ rights under Saddam Hussein and was a key activist in the clandestine Workers Democratic Trade Union Movement which was established in 1980 to keep alive an independent labour movement. He was hunted by the regime for his activities and forced into exile where he continued to work as a printer.
We agree with the IFTU that Iraqi working people have lost a brave trade union leader who dedicated three decades of his life to fighting Saddam’s dictatorship. He fought for a democratic, peaceful and federal Iraq which would unite Iraqis regardless of their background, ethnicity or religion. He championed workers’ rights to organise and strike to achieve decent jobs, pay and working conditions. His cowardly murder is part of a pattern of targeted assassinations and terror by Saddam loyalists.
Harry Barnes MP, Ann Clwyd MP, Brendan Barber, TUC general secretary, Kevin Curran, General secretary, GMB, Pat Rabbitte TD, Leader, Irish Labour party, Peter Bottomley MP, John Lloyd, Bob Marshall Andrews MP, Baroness May Blood, Northern Ireland, Sunder Katwala, General Secretary Fabian Society (personal capacity), Gary Kent, Director Labour Friends of Iraq, Ian Davidson MP, Meg Munn MP, Mike Gapes MP, Rudi Vis MP, Johann Hari, writer, Rob Marris MP, Ernie Ross MP, John Grogan MP, John Austin MP, Tony Lloyd MP, John Cryer MP, Wayne David MP, John Mann MP, Dr Lynne Jones MP, Richard Burden MP, Martin Salter MP, Alan Johnson, South Lakeland, Stop the War.
Resolution for Ward or Constituency Labour Party: Iraqi Trade Unions
This CLP believes that the Iraqi ‘resistance’ is seeking to eliminate the leadership of the emerging Iraqi labour movement, as exemplified by a wave of attacks including the recent torture and murder of Hadi Saleh, International Secretary of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions and two failed assassination attempts in 2004 on Nozad Ismail, the President of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions in Kirkuk and continued death threats made against him. This CLP supports railway workers in Basra who are on strike in pursuit of improved protection and the safe return of their kidnapped colleagues. This CLP welcomes
solidarity statements made by the ICFTU, the TUC and the wider international labour movement in response to the murder of Hadi Saleh and resolves to a) hold a fund-raising event for the striking Basra Rail workers and the TUC Fund for Iraq, co-hosted by local trade unions, b) to invite a speaker to address the CLP from Labour Friends of Iraq and to subscribe to Labour Friends of Iraq.
Respect: The Voice of Hadi Saleh
The Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions has posted an interview with Hadi Saleh, the slain International Secretary of the IFTU, conducted during the ICFTU Congress in December 2004. His recognition of the dangers facing trade unionists is extremely poignant in the light of his own brutal murder.
Main Points of the Program of People’s Unity (Ittihad Al-Shaab) Electoral List
LFIQ regularly posts information about those contending the Iraqi elections on 30 January without necessarily endorsing any.
People’s Unity (Ittihad Al-Shaab) List is a coalition electoral list that includes 275 Iraqi Communists, democrats and independent patriotic and social figures, with 91 women candidates, covering all Iraq’s provinces. The candidates represent the full social, ethnic and religious spectrum of Iraqi society.
Continue reading Main Points of the Program of People’s Unity (Ittihad Al-Shaab) Electoral List
Democracy means workers can choose their trade union
Labour Friends of Iraq support the right of workers in Iraq, as everywhere, to choose for themselves their trade union. This is a basic labour right enshrined in International Labour Conventions 87 and 98. The union’s political viewpoint is not legally relevant to the right to freely establish a trade union. In a democracy, the state has no right to abrogate to itself the right to define one union as legal and another as illegal.
Continue reading Democracy means workers can choose their trade union
Harry Barnes MP renews appeal for Nozad Ismail
The brutal torture and murder of Hadi Salih, who impressed all with his basic decency and dignity after decades of oppression and exile when he briefed MPs last year, is a watershed moment when progressives who have shown a “sneaking regard” for the so-called resistance should shed such lethal illusions.
Hadi’s murder is part of a strategy to eliminate the leadership of the emerging Iraqi labour movement.
Nozad Ismail, the President of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions in Kirkuk, has twice escaped the assassins and receives daily threats.
We have launched a global appeal
See entry for 22 December.
But the “resistance” doesn’t have a postbox and doesn’t listen to rational argument. One way of overcoming this form of fascism is to mobilise decent people to say “they shall not pass.”
Iraqi CP Mourns Trade Unionist Leader
Assassinated by Anti-People Terrorists
The Political Bureau of the Iraqi Communist Party issued a statement today, 5th January 2005, mourning a prominent trade unionist leader and party member, comrade Hadi Saleh (Abu Furat), who was assassinated in Baghdad in a cowardly act by anti-people terrorist elements and supporters of the ousted dictatorial regime.
Statement of the Federation of Workers Councils and Unions in Iraq (FWCUI) on the Assassination of Mr. Hadi Saleh, international secretary of Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions-IFTU
A terrorist group has assassinated Mr. Hadi Saleh, a prominent leader and international secretary of Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions-IFTU, Wednesday January 04. 2005 .They assassinated him near his home in Baghdad, in a series of assassination and physical eradication exercised by the terrorist groups. Assassination is tradition by those political groups who have no any connection with Iraqi people and they are trying to implement their policies through threats, assassination persecution and physical eradication. Assassination will not end the path of any progressive political activist and group which determined to struggle for a free and progressive life for Iraqi people.
US Labor Against the War Statement on the Murder of Hadi Saleh
Hadi Salih, International Officer of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, was a courageous union activist. His assassination in Baghdad yesterday is a crime against Iraq’s working people and its labor movement. The cowardly manner of his killing – he was shot in his bed – is intended to send a message to Iraq’s workers and trade unionists – that their efforts to participate in any peaceful process of political change will be met with death. We stand in solidarity with
the IFTU in rejecting this brutal intimidation.
Continue reading US Labor Against the War Statement on the Murder of Hadi Saleh