To Military and Law Enforcement Personnel: Refrain from Participating in Repression!

To Military and Law Enforcement Personnel: Refrain from Participating in Repression!

Let's Strive for the Release of the Detainees!

For more than ten days, the people of Khuzestan have been taking to the streets at night to raise their voices in protest against the Islamic Republic for poverty, unemployment, discrimination, corruption, coercion, looting and destruction of habitats. Khuzestan has several large rivers, including the largest in the country, the Karun River. But today, the people of Khuzestan are thirsty and tired of the drying up of rivers and wetlands and lack of water. Lack of water and electricity in the sultry summer weather of this region is deadly. People are angry about the lack of electricity because Khuzestan is one of the main centers of electricity production and exporter. The extent of the people’s demonstrations and protests has spread to all the cities of this province and has been going on for ten days. Protests took place in the cities of Susangard, Hamidiyeh, Ahvaz, Kut Abdullah, Malasani, Khorramshahr, Abadan, Mahshahr, Shadegan, Dasht-e Azadegan, Ramhormoz, Masjed Soleiman, etc. Along with their cries for water and electricity, the people of Khuzestan have expressed their anger and protest by shouting slogans against Ali Khamenei and the Islamic Republic. The regime’s repressive forces have also opened fire on the people, killing at least eight Khuzestani teenagers and young people and injuring many. Many of the injured do not go to the hospital for fear of arrest, which could lead to more casualties.

In solidarity with the people of Khuzestan, people in Isfahan, Yazd, Bushehr, Bojnourd, Lorestan and Azerbaijan have taken to the streets to protest the crackdown. One person was also killed in Aligudarz. The Islamic Republic has arrested a large number of protesters. Support for these protests has also been significant. Almost all opposition political organizations, the Council for Organizing Protests of Contract Workers, Haft Tappeh Workers, Ahvaz Steel factory workers, the Iranian Writers Association, filmmakers and cultural activists, the Iranian Teachers' Trade Association, etc., have declared their support for the people of Khuzestan and condemned their repression.

Military and Law Enforcement Personnel!

Do not point your guns at your sisters and brothers in defense of the corrupt leaders of this system of discrimination. You are one of these people. You also suffer from poverty and discrimination. Expensiveness has emptied your pockets as well. Unemployment has also affected many of your families, neighbors, and fellow citizens. The Islamic Republic will be history sooner or later. Do not stand against the people. If you will, there is a way for you to disobey the commands. Disobeying the orders to shoot at the protesters is your human and moral duty and in the words of Fereydoun Moshiri: "I took you in all circumstances to speak the truth, seek the truth and be right, but my dear brother, the truth should not be sought by using this stupid deadly weapon! If this time, your sleepy conscience were awakened, put down your gun!”

The Left Party of Iran (People's Fadaian) supports the demands of the people of Khuzestan. We call on all our allies, wherever they are, and political organizations opposed to the Islamic Republic, which have stood by the people of Iran in the cause of freedom and justice, to resonate the voice of protest of the people of Khuzestan. We call on the Iranian people in different regions to support the uprising of the people of Khuzestan and to help the fight against the ruling tyranny in any way they can. In addition to the means of repression, the Islamic Republic is trying to divide the people with lies and deception. In Khuzestan, it has so far tried to deceitfully excite the Arabs and the Lors against each other. This time, the people are more vigilant than ever and chanted the slogan of Bakhtiari-Arab unity.

In these critical days, our party calls on military and law enforcement personnel to refrain from participating in the repression of the people in any way they can. The people’s arms are open to any personnel who turn their backs on the regime. We also condemn the detention of the protesting people, as well as the human rights activists who support them. We call on the political and democratic institutions, and the individuals who do not want to submit to the ruling tyranny, to defend the lives and dignity of those arrested and with intensifying their struggles, not to allow the repression of the people's protests to continue and the fate of the detainees to be decided in silence and in the regime’s dreaded dungeons.

Political-Executive Board of the Left Party of Iran (People’s Fadaian)

July 24, 2021