Pakistan

August 11, 2010 -- NewsClick (India) via Real News Network -- Farooq Tariq from the Labour Party Pakistan talks about the changing relationship between the Islamic fundamentalists and the state of Pakistan.

Links international journal of socialist renewal
August 7, 2010 -- Appeal from the Labour Relief Campaign, Pakistan
[Readers can also donate via the Australian trade unions' aid agency APHEDA.]
More than 12 million people are suffering from floods in Pakistan. Please donate to the Labour Relief Campaign to help people of Pakistan facing the worst-ever floods in its history. Torrential rains have unleashed flash floods in different parts of the country in the last three weeks. Levies have broken, leaving the people exposed to flood water.

By Farooq Tariq, Labor Party Pakistan
July 23 -- This afternoon, after 17 days of strike by over 20,000 power looms workers in the Jhang district, the bosses agreed to meet the demands. The district coordination officer (DCO) announced at the textile workers’ strike camp that all workers would be issued social security cards. At a meeting the director of social security, the district administration and employers jointly agreed. This will be first time that industrial workers in the Jhang district will be able to receive the benefits of social security, including free health service, special marriage and death grants and free education for their children at social security schools.

[Pictured: Unionist Mustansar Rindhawa (third from left) with Farooq Tariq (fourth from left). Muntansar was murdered on July 6 for his attempts to organise exploited workers. Photo: Viewpointonline.net.]
By Farooq Tariq
July 18, 2010 -- On July 6, while 32-year-old Mustansar Rindhawa was listening to a worker who had not been paid his wages by a textile boss, an unknown person with a Kalashnikov entered the front room and fired.
Mustansar tried to save his life by running to the next room, but 10 people were determined to finish him off.

The statement below was released on July 2 by the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers’ Association (IUF), a global trade union federation. Visit IUF website for more information and to send the Coca Cola Company a message that violence, dismissals and pressure on workers to prevent trade union rights and recognition are criminal acts.
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On May 28, the website of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the World Bank’s private sector lending arm, announced that Coca-Cola Beverages Pakistan Ltd (CCBPL) had applied for a US$60 million loan. The loan sponsors were CCBPL’s two owners, the Atlanta, US-based Coca-Cola Company (TCCC) and Coke’s Turkish-based bottler for Pakistan and the Middle East, Coca-Cola Icecek (CCI).

By Maqsood Mujahid

Pictured: Mian Abdul Qayum.
Farooq Tariq -- On April 10, 2010, Mian Abdul Qayum, a labour leader in Faisalabad, submitted his nomination papers as candidate for the Punjab Assembly constituency 63 by-election on May 15. The other candidates are from the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PMLN) and the National Muslim League. We need your support to contest this by-election.

Bushra Khaliq, Lahore
13 March 2010 -- More than 1500 women marched in Lahore from Nasir Bagh to the Punjab Assembly, under the banner of the Women Workers’ Help Line (WWHL) to celebrate International Women’s Day (IWD) on March 8.
Despite prevailing fear among the people of Lahore after an early morning suicidal attack in Model Town, women workers, including home-based workers, domestic workers, brick kiln and embellishment workers, made their way to observe the IWD.

Simon Butler, Green Left Weekly
13 February 2010 -- During the 1960s, radical student movements broke out in countries across the world. Unlike in Europe, North America or Australia, Pakistan’s student movement proved strong enough to overthrow a government.
Pakistan’s National Student Federation (NSF) led the huge protests in 1969 that led to the downfall of the hated Ayub Khan dictatorship.

By Farooq Tariq
February 8, 2010 -- The two-day Labour Party Pakistan fifth congress [held on on January 27-28] helped to advance the revolutionary process in Pakistan. It brought together comrades from different traditions and trends to discuss the central topic: “Building a mass working-class party independent of the influence of the capitalists and feudal elements.” The congress was a bravura expression of the growing influence and strength of emerging left-wing politics in Pakistan.