Sri Lanka: SEP holds meeting and picket in Hatton for release of Maruti Suzuki workers
By
our correspondents
27 May 2017
Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) members and supporters held a successful picket and public meeting in Hatton on May 21 to demand the immediate release of the framed-up Maruti Suzuki autoworkers in India. Hatton is a major town in Sri Lanka’s central hill country plantation district.
In March, 13 workers from Maruti Suzuki’s Manesar car assembly plant in the north Indian state of Haryana were sentenced to life imprisonment on bogus murder charges. Their only “crime” was to fight against the brutal working conditions inside the global corporation’s factory.
The SEP picket and public meeting were held a little more than a week after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the area to address a meeting of estate workers organised by the plantation trade unions. Modi’s posturing as a friend of plantation workers is exposed by his government’s brutal treatment of the Maruti Suzuki workers, in particular, and the Indian working class in general.
The SEP/IYSSE picket, held near the Hatton bus stand, won the attention of hundreds of estate workers, housewives and young people. SEP and International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) statements in defence of the framed-up Suzuki workers were distributed in the town. Plantation workers travelled from Maskeliya, Dickoya and Kotagala to attend the meeting.
Banner and placards displayed in the picket line read: “Free the framed-up Maruti Suzuki workers!” “Fight for international socialism against the suppression of social and democratic rights!” “Build the working class…