Happy Springtime

March 20, 2022

Happy Nowruz 1401 (Solar Calendar - whose annual cycles are based only directly on the solar year) to our dear compatriots and all the people who observe it. Happy New Year "to relatives, to friends, to close friends, to wrathful men who fight, to those who, with the pen, show the destruction of the world in the eyes of the world." We hope that the dark shadow of Corona, which has perished many lives in Iran and the world in the last couple of years, will fade and disappear. We are pleased that promising signs of overcoming this deadly virus have emerged and the dream of a life without fear of Corona has come to life for everyone on the eve of Nowruz.

On the verge of Nowruz, Russia imposed a devastating war on the Ukrainian people with a military aggression and took many victims. Thousands lost their lives and millions of Ukrainians were displaced. Hatred of war must be judged from the point of view of its victims, who are people, rather than the faces of its decision-makers. War is doomed because it ends at the cost of the lives and displacement of people who have no role in it.

Last year, the world witnessed the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Twenty years after the overthrow of the Taliban through the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, the Taliban have returned to power. The corrupt government that ruled under the umbrella of American forces has collapsed with the withdrawal of the US forces. With the return of the Taliban, the efforts of Afghan civil society to build a modern society has been trodden. Political and civil liberties and human rights have been crushed by the Taliban dark regime. Women, with all their resistance, are the biggest victims of this setback.

In Iran, during an election show state power has been handed over to a president who is killer of thousands of political prisoners and devotee of the Supreme Leader. In 1988 alone, he played a role in the murder of several thousand prisoners. Ibrahim Raeisi and his corrupt government, claiming chastity with the help of the parliament and listening to the Supreme Leader's orders, were able to snatch the ball from their predecessors in incompetence and plunder in less than a year of monopolizing power. They sought to strengthen parasitic, security, military, and affiliated militias in the region, and to divide the country's capital as the booties among the insiders. Also, in this brief period, they have left a complete black record of repression of writers, workers, teachers, retirees, national and ethnic activists, civil activists, women, students, and so on. The premeditated murder of freedom-fighter writer Baktash Abtin in prison is an example of their shameful record.

But in the past year, beyond these tragic events, the people of the world have witnessed the failure of the expansionist policy of the world's largest economic and military power in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although the Putin's Russia could not learn from this defeat, and by invading Ukraine used the lives of its people to compete with its rivals, but it is so clear that the wider the scope of the war, the more the illegitimacy of such a policy becomes apparent.

In Iran, too, the resistance of the people became more widespread last year. Strikes and protests by workers, retirees, teachers, and other social groups have become more widespread over the past year. Farmers' protest against the water shortage spread. Despite the arrest of union activists and the attack on their rallies, the teachers' movement has challenged the ruling reactionary regime more vigorously and resolutely. The scope of their protests has become broader and their forms of struggle have become more mature and cohesive. The labor movement, retirees and other social groups have not been silenced for a moment. In the past year, prison, which has always been a tool to extinguish the flames of the people's struggle, to strengthen the sense of fear and discouragement in society and to shut the mouths, has become a stronghold in defense of freedom. By tolerating tortures, brave men and women such as Narges Mohammadi, Nasrin Sotoudeh, Sepideh Qoliyan, Rasoul Badaghi, Ismail Bakhshi, Mohammad Habibi, Baktash Abtin,... have humiliated the regime prisons and prison guards with unparalleled courage and bravery.

On the eve of Nowruz, the Left Party of Iran (People’s Fadaian) sends greetings to the political prisoners who are resisting in the most difficult conditions, to all the freedom fighters who raise the flag of struggle outside the prisons, to the families of the freedom fighters who have been fighting for more than forty years to Keep the “Khavarans (mass grave yards of political prisoners)” open and do not allow the crimes of the regime to be forgotten. In memory of all the infatuated souls who gave their lives for freedom and equality, and the fallen comrades who died in the cold and winter of tyranny and under the most brutal repression and killing in the country in defense of human values, we congratulate everyone on Nowruz.

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

Nowruz 1401 - March 20, 2022