Let Us Fight for the Release of all Political Prisoners!
On Monday, during the organized operation of the regime repression forces, a number of family members of the victims of November 2019 were arrested. Hours after the arrest of the "Mothers for Justice" for the killings of the regime in January 2018 and November 2019, the publications belonging to the regime's repression organs accused them of receiving money to create riots and insecurity. In search of the reason for the killing of their loved ones, these families have always been harassed by killers and sometimes arrested and imprisoned in recent years. However, they have not stopped demanding justice and holding the ruling regime responsible for the murder of their loved ones. Now these families are facing a new round of repression.
At the same time as the attack on the "Mothers for Justice", Jafar Panahi, the prominent filmmaker of our country, who went to the Evin courthouse with several other artists to follow up on the case of two other detained filmmakers, Mohammad Rasulof and Mustafa Al-Ahmad, was arrested. His wife announced that he was taken to the general ward of Evin prison to serve his six-year sentence issued in December 2010. Jafar Panahi is the third cinema director who has been taken to the Evin prison after Mohammad Rasulof and Mustafa Al-Ahmad. The arrest of these three filmmakers has caused a wide protest from international film festivals including Cannes, Berlin and Venice. All three of them have condemned the wave of repression of artists and demanded their immediate release.
Currently, trade union activists including Reza Shahabi and Hassan Saeedi are in prison and are on a hunger strike to protest their arrest. Rasul Badaghi, Mohammad Habibi, and a number of other teachers’ union activists are in prison. Narges Mohammadi, Keyvan Samimi, Reza Khandan Mahabadi and dozens of others have been sentenced to prison by making cases against them. Saeed Madani, Anisha Asadolahi, Keivan Mohtadi, even critics like Mustafa Tajzadeh have been arrested. With the continuation of these arrests, the Islamic Republic shows its fear of expanding the scope of people's protests and intends to convey its fear to the society by creating an atmosphere of fear and terror, motivate the repression forces and encourage them to continue the repression. It is not in vain that every wave of repression is preceded by sending of mobs into the streets to suppress women under the name of fighting against "bad veiling" and so on. The arrest of Mohammad Rasulof and Mustafa Al-Ahmad, filmmakers who, in a short statement, asked the armed forces not to shoot at people, not to carry out the order to kill people and to lay down their guns, is a sign of fear that such calls will continue and become widespread. Today, doubts about the possibility of continuing the existing situation within the social body of the regime have also spread. The fear of the regime is the collapse of the shaky pillars of its power. The people and the civil society have long wanted nothing but the transition from this system, and the rulers of the Islamic Republic know this.
The Left Party of Iran (People’s Fadaian) condemns the attack on the families of the victims of the regime's massacres in the suppression of people's protests, the arrest of "Mothers for Justice", as well as the arrest of prominent filmmakers of the country as well as political and civil activists and making false accusations and filing cases against them. We ask all activists and political and civil forces, democratic and cultural assemblies, human rights defenders of the country and international human rights defenders to condemn the Islamic Republic of Iran for arbitrary arrests and demand unconditional release of filmmakers, "Mothers for justice" and political, ideological and civil activists and all political prisoners in Iran. We should make the slogan of "Political prisoners must be freed" more resounding and take advantage of every opportunity to put pressure on the regime, which is prone to any crime due to its shaky position, and not let the regime's policy of repression against the opposition and civil activists continue.
Political-Executive Board of the Left Party of Iran (People’s Fadaian)
July 12, 2022
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