Urszula Wislanka for News & Letters

San Francisco—Our May Day demonstration addressed many “bread and butter” issues facing workers, including healthcare workers fighting for an ability to give care; teachers opposed to school closings fighting for the children’s right to have an education; students at City College fighting class reductions and campus closings; Lyft and Uber workers fighting to be recognized as workers and, most notably, Amazon workers fighting to be recognized as human beings, not robots.

One speaker summed it up: “In the land of milk and honey, we are fighting for rice and beans!”

Prof. Cihan Tugal brought attention to the fate of the Gezi Park 2013 protesters in Turkey, who were trying to protect the last green space in Istanbul (see “Turkey, Syria and Iran at crossroads of world revolt,” N&L, July-Aug. 2013). They are now facing trials in increasingly authoritarian Turkey.

An Iranian activist asked that we sign an emergency appeal to free Iran’s political prisoners, like Narges Mohammadi, a journalist facing death by deliberate denial of medical care in prison, and Mehran Raoof, a teacher sentenced to 11 years in prison for “propaganda against the regime.”

To find out more about those and other political prisoners in Iran and to sign the appeal for their freedom, go to FreeIransPoliticalPrisonersNOW.org.

—Urszula Wislanka