On March 18, blogger Omid Reza Mir Sayafi died in prison after being sentenced to two and a half years in prison. He had been charged with insulting religious leaders and spreading propaganda about the Islamic Republic of Iran. There were reports of Mir Sayafi—who primarily wrote about Persian music and culture—being depressed, of him taking sedative pills or receiving an overdose, of being described by his also-jailed doctor as “not at all fit for confinement” and the prison hospital failing to provide adequate care. People spoke of how use of torture was an open secret in Iranian prisons, and how someone accused of libelous blogging could be kept near more violent criminals. Mir Sayafi’s death under mysterious circumstances—and the whys and hows of a blogger being jailed in the first place—prompted outcry by members of the international community, followed by action. The March 18 movement started in part as a memorial to Mir Sayafi (with March 18 denoted as a day of remembrance), and in part to ensure that “the first blogger to die in prison be the last” as more bloggers around the world become victims of more than just government censorship. Founded by Hamid Tehrani and Mideast Youth, an interfaith youth network, the March 18 movement seeks to expand the world’s understanding of bloggers as de facto journalists, and extend the protections normally accorded to journalists to all those who share information and stories of repression and corruption online–sometimes at risk of violence or other harm. March18.org asks supporters to join them by following the movement on Twitter, Facebook and the movement’s blog. The blog and Twitter feed post on movement-relevant issues and news: Recent posts include news about a freed female reformist blogger and information on how to help bloggers currently being persecuted in Vietnam. The motivations of the March 18 movement and similar initiatives are not unlike those of “Reporter Without Borders” – the long-established activist organization for journalists’ rights that has spoken out about continued persecution of bloggers in Iran. Mir Sayafi’s death, and the role bloggers and active Twitter users played in the civil unrest following Iran’s presidential elections this year, has drawn attention to the bloggers’ rights movement, represented by sites like Global Voices and the Committee to Protect Bloggers. The Basics:
WHO: Omid Reza Mir Sayafi and people around the world trying to ensure that what happened to him doesn’t happen to other bloggers.
WHAT: Mir Sayafi was one of a number of bloggers that have been arrested in Iran; he was reportedly the first to die in prison. Movements and memorials have sprung up in his memory, and his story — and the greater story of persecuted bloggers in Iran, and the yet greater story of bloggers under oppressive regimes around the world — has also drawn attention to bloggers’ rights and safety campaigns worldwide.
WHERE: Worldwide.
HOW to get involved: Follow the March 18 blog, Twitter and Facebook feeds. Become a member on the web site. Check out Global Voices, Reporters Without Borders and Committee to Protect Bloggers for new.
Translated by “A Friend of the Movement” The purpose of this note is to point out some of the obstacles to the expansion of the Iranian communists’ activities.
1. For taking further and well-thought steps, we have to discard a number of erroneous notions. The first misconception is to perceive contemporary Iran as a ‘post-revolutionary’ society. Iran is not in a post-revolutionary situation, in which another revolution is necessary. The current movement is a new sequence of the revolutionary process that started in 1978. The internal conflicts of the ruling factions, the machinery of oppression and the forms that people’s struggle take, their slogans and demands, all these are parts of a historical period that started with the Iranian Revolution in 1978. We should perceive the present popular movement in such a broader context, and discard any prevalent sort of sociological analysis, even those that in appearance seem class-based. We will explain this. This means that the movement that started on June 15 [2009] is a continuation of the people’s struggle in answering questions, which they themselves had posed in the society through the overthrow of Shah’s regime: How can we establish freedom, independence and a people’s republic in Iran? How can we run the society based on people’s sovereignty, and without relying on any of the pre-capitalistic institutions, without the royal court and its allies? The first answer, the Islamic Republic, has failed that test. It was not the Iranian revolution that failed the test; such a statement is meaningless. Those political alternatives pertaining to the first sequence failed. The revolution itself, however, is still young. This is not to say that the course of the events, forms of the struggle and the behavior of the forces in this sequence are a repetition of what happened between 1977 and 1980. Quite the contrary, this movement is different in form and content, and its enemy is not the classic dictatorship of the Shah, but an Islamic regime, which emerged from the same revolutionary process and claims to have inherited the demand for republicanism, freedom and the independence of the Iranian people (this is a reference to the emblematic tripartite central slogan during winter 1978-79, trans.note). In the historical events of June 15 [2009], this claim was unambiguously taken back from the ruling regime. When Moussavi and the Participation Front [jebhey-e mosharekat] end up in opposition to the main symbol of the Islamic Republic, i.e., velayat-e faqih [rule of religious jurists], and in effect stand alongside the people (not just in words, but in social objectivity), this is indicative of the fact that the Islamic Republic separated its path from that of the revolution, which amounts to the political suicide of the regime. From this point on, the 1979 revolution will anew seek its own identity and fate, is no longer an Islamic revolution as this regime called it; what it is will be determined by this very movement in its references to that revolutionary memory. The easiest example is the ‘Allah-o Akbar’ slogan. The slogan was first used during the uprising in 1978-1979. Today, it is employed against the regime that once had transformed that symbol of protest to an ideological alibi for establishing political Islam. By employing the same phrase, people indicate the radical level of their demand that goes beyond the phrase. People are employing the religious Arabic wording ‘Allah-o Akbar’ as a metaphor for something else in Persian: Death to the dictator. Here the content goes beyond the phrase. If we don’t see this difference, we will misunderstand people’s slogans and, worst of all, we will move away from the people and leave the initiative to others. Therefore, in the first instance, any radical political force in Iran must synchronize its behavior, position and outlook with the calendar and sequences of the Iranian Revolution. This means: Don’t interpret! Don’t make up slogans that seem revolutionary! Be the thought for an action. (The word employed in the title of the article in Persian is “eqdam” which means the initial, commencing phase of an action, the intentional component of an undertaking. The title of the text reads “fekr-e eqdam”, thought of/for an action, which is deliberately ambiguous; it both means a thought or idea discernable through action and the deliberations before an action.) An idea that pertains to such an action is the articulation of the very people’s demands. Its point of departure is the people’s — all the people’s — pain and suffering, their capabilities as well as shortcomings. The Iranian people, when they take the initiative to wrest back the political cause from their rulers, are not Muslims, nor idolaters, nor liberals or royalists, nor demanding the overthrow of anything, nor a sect wishing to establish a socialist republic based on premeditated plans. No people have ever been like that. If a people have overthrown any system, it has been because that system blocked the collective movement of the people; if a people in some places transformed their councils/soviets into a new form of republic, this was because in the course of their struggles, they achieved all-encompassing and universal goals, for which that form (the councils, soviets, etc.) was found to be optimal; if they rose to do away with private property in a factory, some neighborhood, this city, a given country, this was because in their daily battles they realized that this form of property was an obstacle to the realization of a humane life. We must think of communism as an equivalent to these conditioned propositions, which means we must free our ideals from burdensome clichés. Anyone who wants to stage the last scene of another revolution as the first act of a revolution here is not thinking of any concrete measures for action. He is, at best, a plagiarist. 2. In the writings of leftist activists in Iran, we see two burdensome concepts, which have caused the scattered, oppressed and wounded figure of the left to turn even more scattered. One is the seemingly unproblematic concept of the ‘middle class’. Interesting that this concept is seen precisely in such analyses that most certainly contain class in their titles, and in which quotations from Marx or Lenin abound. However, Marx has never used anything called middle class, with the particular meaning envisioned by these writers, in his historical analyses. On the contrary, this is a contemporary sociological concept. ‘Middle class’ is a deeply vague and ideological concept. Middle of what, and how did this middle become a class? In the present misery, hospital workers and staff, our school teachers, the factory workers and the youth who have been deprived of employment and who live in dormitories are not middle class. In the midst of the summer solstice in the third world, what middle class? These are laboring forces, the very thing you have been looking for, and right in front of your eyes, in the streets of self-representation and in the alleys of common interests. They have, at least momentarily, felt their capacity to impose their presence in the public arena of our cities and from now on nothing will remain the same as before, including the meaning of democracy. The ashes of petty-bourgeois academism is incapable of understanding the simple fact that people who, reliant on solidarity, claim a common objective for all are no longer the same as a formless mass.
Besides this, this movement has as yet not benefited fully from the independent presence of the organized poor. The current presence of a section of the rulers alongside the movement has also caused some confusion. The most wrongheaded policy in the current situation is to busy ourselves with polemics with this segment of the rulers to prove that they cannot be our fellow travelers. From the people’s point of view, such arguments, no matter how brimming with revolutionary phrases, resemble the arguments of the two factions of the rulers. Such is not communist activity. Expansion of people’s movement means helping to build popular organizations amongst those people whose voice is not counted, not recognized by the state. Joining of the poor alongside presence of the laboring forces will show any petty-bourgeois ideological illusion to be what they are: moralistic speech making. It is at such a [historical] moment, but not earlier, that those few journalists advocating neo-liberalism will be forgotten. Do you see how the difference between people and their enemies is cognizable? It suffices that people organize themselves around all-encompassing demands and grasp their own representation in a common cause. Slogans such as “Give me back my vote!” has, neither immediately nor necessarily, anything to do with acceptance of the elections game or parliamentarianism. We see that many people who had boycotted the elections participated in the rallies. It does not even relate immediately to Ahmadinejad and the overthrow of the Islamic Republic, but goes farther and deeper than these things. This lack of immediate relation must be taken as our point of departure. The important point is the collective uprising to claim our crushed rights; this readiness to rise up for the right to have a vote must be understood the way it actually is, beyond ideological imageries about elections, and must be expanded to include other rights of the people. 3. The second reason for lack of cohesion, I think, relates to a mistake by the communists about who the addressee is. One component of such a mistake concerns the concept of ‘enemy’. In short, it is simplistic to think that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and, vice versa, to consider those who are not friends of the people as the enemy. Enemy and friend are asymmetrical terms. We don’t determine the enemy by their beliefs and speech, but the criterion is their objective behavior in concrete conditions. The enemies are those who take up arms against the expansion of the people’s movement and are destroying their organizations. ‘Enemy’ is a concept, whose use is akin to that of a weapon, which must be pointed in a particular direction and at a certain target. Friends who are fond of Marx should believe that this is exactly what Marx says. Running hurriedly into the arena, and without any popular backing calling the people whose flags are not our desired colors ‘the enemy’, is akin to firing an empty gun in the darkness. Let us reach some conclusions from these three points: A. If the communists are on the side of revolution, and are capable of discerning the historical demands of the Iranian Revolution, and are able to understand the logic of its development, then they must welcome the disintegration of the governmental coalition called Islamic Republic, and must welcome the joining with their ranks of segments of a republican system that claimed to have answers to the demands of the Iranian Revolution. They must not forget that this split among the different factions of rulers was caused by the very movement of the people, and not by the infighting of the two factions, as declared in sociological analyses. No! Any infighting within the ruling system occurs against the background of a revolutionary society, and always has three sides. If we look at the behavior of the people from this angle, we can easily see how the people in effect are constantly pushing forward this segment of rulers [that has joined them] with all its resources, and at least for the short-term. Once, a while ago, it was possible for Khatami to avoid such a position, but for Moussavi any retreat is tantamount to political suicide or even a threat to his life. Intellectual friends, militant comrades! Abandon exposing every inconsistency in their statements; in doing such things, you are actually looking at the whole thing from the top, and staring wide-eyed only at the surface appearance of their infighting, and by necessity you will be limited to playing the role of the permanent pen-wielding critic of the policies of those upstairs, without giving any space or chance to communism as a positive idea to be constructed. From the point of view of the people’s movement and its inventiveness, the separation of a segment of the rulers and its alignment alongside the people’s demands is a non-negligible victory. Without having any illusions about this segment or its historical background, this victory should be protected. Otherwise, and by proposing ideas about the class nature of this segment and by repeating hasty misreadings of the separating line between ‘proletariat’ and ‘bourgeois’, you would be underestimating the present force of the people’s movement. Instead of this petty-bourgeois incredulity, turn to organizing the labor forces, turn to expanding the struggle among the poor and the workers, disseminate awareness among the people based on tangible given demands, get to work alongside them for formulating concrete and relevant demands, and thereby acknowledge yourself as part of a common cause. B. The relationship between the people and the communist activists and intellectuals is not one of a passive ‘addressee’ and an active ‘agent’. A lot of friends in the Iranian left seem unable to inspire confidence. They are trapped in intellectual labyrinths, in which workers or poor people can not recognize themselves, and at times they produce road maps such as would befit those by parties boasting millions of members. For communists, the dialectic of addressing is a complex one. If an intellectual or an activist has more time to read and think, this does not make them a popular movement’s engineer or an expert on budgeting and planning for the people’s movement. This type of engineer-like thinking among the left has its own reasons. But, what is important here is that, the people, when in a struggle or when voicing slogans in a demonstration, are both ‘addressees’ and ‘agents’. Every time we address the people, it is because we want to make their own voices heard, and to make possible their right to address all. This important fact must be present in the very first words that we utter publicly. This means that if we voice a slogan, it must express a demand that is achievable even though it appears for now impossible, and is based on a responsible examination of reality and real capacities of social forces; meaning, our slogans are consistently a minimal expression that can embrace a maximum of imaginable objectives, not a blind maximalism that bears no relation to the real conditions. This means that our slogans are part of the collective understanding and our enthusiasm a co-conspirator in the plans that the people, before us, have forged against the dominant grammar of power. “Do not fear, do not fear; We are all together here!” This slogan engages in no exaggerations, nor does it encourage any singular voice, and is not vague, either. It is effective and encouraging, and paves the way. This togetherness of all for a common claim beyond the governmental powers and the media discourse is a thousand times more radical and revolutionary than using worn out clichés. This inventiveness of the people is the source of strength for the communists. Please do not say that you would separate out and arrange two camps facing each other, and that “co-presence of all” is a bourgeois slogan. That is not the case. In its best form, capitalism can only guarantee the wellbeing of a minority among the millions of people deprived of their rights. ‘All’ is both the ‘addressee’ and the ‘addresser’, a historical moment that extends beyond the limits of capitalism; class struggle signifies that a certaingroup, as a social class, stands on the way of this progression. To misread Marx, Lenin and others is worse than not reading them at all. That which is encouraging for our young forces, is their objectively better possibility of success, compared to the period of 1978-1981. The weakness and the scatteredness of the leftist militants from the 1978 revolution, at this moment can be a positive point for the creation of new communist forces that have learned from the past, and stand alongside the people to solve crucial problems of the movement, using their ideas and without concepts that are estranged from our lived experience. I will end this note with a reminder: one of the best articles about the conditions of realization of historical demands of the 1978 revolution was written by the reformist thinker Sa’eed Hajjarian, published a few days before the [June 12, 2009] elections. Hajjarian’s thesis, in a reference to Rosa Luxembourg’s slogan, ‘Socialism or Barbarity’, was that in today’s Iran, the choice is between barbarity and civility. We must read this thesis correctly, meaning with the opposite intention of the writer. You have the best chance of success, because the Iranian Revolution at each new phase, each time clearer than before, shows that socialism, or better to say communism, is the only possible civility for the future of a free Iran. If we do not act thoughtfully and intelligently, tomorrow we will end up looking blindly for the spent shells after shooting those bullet-less guns; something that some left-leaning friends have been busy doing for too many years.
From Khiaban #40 By Milad S. 1. In the current struggle, the main force is the people. ‘The people’ means the laboring forces, the industrial workers, teachers and students, employees of the health and services sectors and the office workers, university students, the unemployed and the poor. Different segments of the population have joined the street protests to different degrees, ranging from general mobilization in some parts to hesitance and waiting in other parts.
The foundational principle is that the laboring forces, in widely varied working situations and at times without cultural or organizational continuity in a country consisting of different peoples, do not need centralized guidelines; rather, they need a multiplicity of guidelines, and different kinds and fields of activities. Therefore, based on the heterogeneous conditions of the existence of laboring forces, the first principle of organizing is the definiteness of place. This principle has two components. Undoubtedly, organizing industrial workers and organizing low-ranking office workers/staff or teachers are subjected to different circumstances, their demands too vary, and likewise the situation in a small town in Kurdistan is not the same as that in the country’s capital. In the course of the collective overall organization of these demands, the heterogeneity of places rediscover each other through all-encompassing demands and move in the same direction. The decisive factor here is that this co-direction of the movement, which based on its logic is a passing phenomenon, does not eliminate the place-specific multiplicity of demands. The second component of the principle is the logic of belonging. If we expend effort for the betterment of life in a specific neighborhood, the Shiite and the Baha’i, the Jewish and the Muslim, women and men, they all belong to this neighborhood. If we are attempting to organize a strike in a factory, the Afghan workers, the Baluchi and Khuzestani workers too work in that factory, in that location. This belonging to this very place must be obtained as a right in its real effectiveness. 2. The second point is about the difference between organizations of intellectuals or supporters of the communist ideal and the people’s organizations. At this historical moment and due to the existence of new communications capabilities, forming of a network comprising numerous small groups of communists, and creation of a minimum of coordination based on collective understanding and agreement is possible and more adaptable for social action. A weakness of this type of work is the time it takes to reach collective agreements; obviously a centralized leadership can reach decisions more quickly. In my view, however, this weakness can be compensated for with the improvement of the means of communication, especially with the help of the infrastructure available outside the country. On the other hand, the very process of reaching collective decisions and agreements is part of the very definition and distinguishing feature of the communists’ work. In this very process, we can correct the tone and content of our ideas. In other words, the central committee is this very pluralistic network, the communist ideal is the work of independent organizing of the people, and the polit-bureau too is the collective decisions. However, these communist groups are not the same as the people’s independent organizations. The goal of the organization of the labor force is putting forward people’s demands and creating conditions for intervention in the process of production of social wealth. Groups of communist activists either bring forth the idea of forming these organizations, or in their actions they attempt to belong to such organizations or to their leadership. To imagine that the mere formation of a communist group, reading some books and engaging in theoretical discussions is the same as communist activity is completely mistaken. The end result of the communists’ work should be the organization of the people. Any theory, any level of competence in discussing the details of the French or the October Revolution, or any sociological theory can help our work and help solidify our knowledge of organizing, but these cannot replace the people’s organizations. An association of communists is only a part of the people’s organizations. If this principle is not forgotten, the group itself can find ways of avoiding cliquishness and ossification of their internal relations. In some experiences, for example, in order to reduce the danger of becoming a closed circle, simple formal mechanisms have been used, such as limiting the number of members to an odd number, e.g. three, five or seven to a group. The oddness of number disturbs an internal relations based on pair relations and symbiosis to a certain extent. Another experience is that when unanimity of ideas is impossible while the conditions are pressing, based on a lottery, one person is chosen as the leader for a short period of time, such as several weeks. This person’s role is to cast the decisive vote when a group cannot reach consensus. This role is completely based on drawing lots, and not on any individual characteristics of the person. Specific actions: writing and distribution of night-fliers; or creating a preliminary cell in order to form a workers’ organization in a factory, or in order to create a support fund for a teachers’ or university students’ organization, in order to create a secret or publicly announced local free health clinic or a free school; or any other project that is needed and doable, is an effort directed toward presence in a people’s organization in their places of work or living. 3. Organizing of people is not a means or a tool; organizing the people around time- and place-specific demands is the realization of the communist movement. In today’s Iran, this very principle is in fact the only way out of the endemic crisis that has engulfed all the social spheres. To escape this historical crisis, no device or technique deployed by the state will solve the problems. The people’s organized presence, without any ideological affixes or titles, is not only the dam blocking the way of the capitalist state apparatuses’ aggression against the people’s livelihood and integrity, but today even their body. These organizations of the labor force, and the possibility of their spread to the poor, is the way out of the crisis for the entirety of the society. To clarify the principle of the independent organization of people, a line must be drawn against a phenomenon that has become prevalent in the last two decades. NGOs, or Non-Governmental Organizations, are deeply ideological structures. The boundaries of NGO activities are defined by the space separating the state power from the particular interests of different socio-cultural groups in society. This space, the civil society, has been defined in contrast to the private space based on private property, and in contrast to the state as the public discourse. This definition and this position, is historically specific to bourgeois societies. It is now decades since, in advanced capitalist societies, capital itself obliterated the boundaries between the private space and the public domain.
Today, capital is extremely social and no bourgeois is anywhere in sight; today, the suburb itself is a factory for producing surplus value. Capital has left no room for civil society, and there are no neutral or separating spaces in their bourgeois sense. Besides, capital’s progress has never shied from aggression against the private space or the public/social resources. Contrary to what the orthodox would say, cultural products and creations, including cultural identities too, are not super-structural things. I don’t understand the meaning of ‘super-structure’ exactly. The dominant culture, the media and visual representations today are part of the cycle of production and accumulation of profit in a modern society; sexuality, historical traditions and even childhood are commoditized and are spheres of investment. Today, the defense of civility does not occur in the suspended space between the state and capital. Exactly for this reason, a true liberal, not these pretences of being liberal in academic environs, but freedom-seekers and those truly against totalitarianism, had better join the communists. The people’s independent organizations are separate from state power, and this independence is gained by them based on their connections to the labor force, to the production process and the places of living. This means that these organizations, in any place where possible, will turn to self-management. To put it more theoretically, the operational space for these organizations is not the ‘public space’, but a space based on the definition of a common cause while forming these organizations. That which distinguishes the work of communist groups from that of the NGOs is firstly the control that the people assume over their organizations, and secondly going beyond the civil society as an artificial space under the control of capital. Let it be said too that, in my view, in today’s Iran the space of social negotiation between particular interests and the state will either rapidly be transformed and move beyond the limits of particular interests, or become an appendage of the state, a charitable activity. As a result, under conditions whereby the existing choices for a communist group is either passivity or engaging in cliquish discussions, being active in such organizations while being aware of their ideological limitations, can help in gaining an initial experience of social work. 4. Along the same lines, we must pay attention to a misunderstanding. To be a Muslim, either in good faith or just in pretences, doesn’t have a jot to do with “Islamist”, as in an adjective for [a particular kind of] social interventionism. Being a Muslim is an individual concern, and we can probably find as many kinds of personal Islamic beliefs as there are Muslims in Iran. One Muslim can be working alongside communists in a popular organization and still remain a very pious human, while another can be a torturer in the basement rooms in the Evin prison. And both could pray five times a day. These beliefs are not the determining criteria for social behavior. The adjective ‘Islamist’, however, is a completely different creature. The problem of the Islamists in Iran, both those ruling and those currently condemned, during these past decades is the conflation of the adjective ‘Islamic’ and being a Muslim. This is an ideological and totalitarian manipulation of some people’s Muslim-ness. And all this, based on fiqh [religious jurisprudence], meaning the same legal rulings of the 16th century, which were left behind almost one hundred years ago. A Sixteenth century jurist does what we see they try to do now. He cuts off people’s hands in Sattar Khan highway (a highway in Tehran, named after one of the leaders of the Constitutional Revolution, 1906, which abolished religious interference in jurisprudence). So, as you see, for the Islamists, “Islamic democracy” means the Islamist people, whose similarities with being a Muslim occur only in name and in truth cannot be anything but the state’s functionaries, choose the best suited among themselves, but claim this selection should be valid for all Iranian people. Such a fictitious line of thought is fundamentally incapable of understanding a thing called ‘society’. Let alone democracy. 5. In order to spread a single word among the people, it takes efforts proving that one can be trusted. Those who want to shortcut history, make announcements in the name of the people, and proceed forward by manufacturing public opinion —they consider people dupes and want them to remain thus. Without having any roots in people’s organizations, and without a people who have gained social consciousness in the process of fighting for their rights, calling on the people to engage in massive projects, no matter how radical they may seem, at least for the communists is meaningless.
When I think of all that’s happened in the past few months, I can't sit still. One can no longer live a normal carefree life, continuously waiting for something to happen. There is a wave of excitement in everyone everywhere. Let me explain the things I’m thinking of. The things we should have done, but haven't, the things we’ve never done all of our lives, but have now, like fighting Basijis, the police and starting up fires in the streets to defend ourselves against the tear gas thrown at us. Of the lessons we learned in school and the ones we learned in the streets - unlike all the years in school, this time we all passed our exams with flying colors. If only for the experiences we gained that no-one knows of, for all the hopes and desires that are achievable, for all the plans that we now carry in our heads, for carving a beautiful future ahead and turning all the impossibles to possibles.
In the past few months, the students engaged in activities that not only the regime officials but the parents of the students and even the students themselves couldn't believe. The Internet was filtered so to show all that was happening they took every illegal alternative. They were given trouble for wearing trendy jeans,female students were given disciplinary warnings in the streets from home to school,... from their families, neighbours and school faculty, hearing vulgar profanities from Basijis. The students who were disgusted by the religion and Islamic theology courses and wished for the time to fly so they could fill it with more informative courses...day and night, both in and out of school, in the streets and alleys, were controlled by Basij. Throughout the world when a government oppresses with backward medieval laws, security forces, spies and intelligence agents, students play a pivotal role in striking out against such control.With their presence at every protest they have created a crack in the giant repressor and activated other forces. Their voices are sharp and cutting. Their screams are full of rebellion. Wasn't it just a couple of years ago in a protest against rising fuel prices that people took to the streets and gas stations were set on fire by these same students? Wasn't it a few months ago when the workers of the sugar factory, Haft Tappeh, hand in hand with their children and partners, carried out a successful march and strike? Importance should be given to the role of students in these protests. In the past months you could see the male and female students in the thick of events everywhere you turned. On an international level too, this vital role is apparent. In occupied Palestine these same adolescents and young students opened al- Intifada fire on the most savage and ferocious regime in the region. Only a year ago that students’ flared up anger illuminated Greece. Many of these radical young people in the streets and alleys were school students in groups with the university students who were going to battle with the police forces. Most recently, in protesting discriminatory laws against immigrants, expensive education fees…and in France, there have been numerous uprisings in which the students were present without exception. Let’s take another look at Iran. We can see that throughout the history of Iranian people's struggle since schools were standing, students have followed . History does not only consist of the pages in our books. We should pay careful attention to it. Just as in the late 40s and early 50s in many areas of the world, people deeply believed that they could build another world free of oppression and exploitation, destroy power and establish real governments of the people. In Iran too this was the conviction of school and university students and it rapidly grew. The presence of students at the burial of Gholamreza Takhti (the most famous wrestler in Iranian history, to date a symbol of chivalry and sportsmanship, who was found dead in his hotel room in 1968. The government announced a verdict of suicide but claims of murder for his political activities against the Shah endure.) and again in the struggle against the price surge of bus tickets, in Tehran is memorable Without the fierce impact of the students on days such as 13th of Aban 1357 (4 November 1978) the Shah's regime would never have fallen. In the following years of ‘57 to ‘60 (1978-1981), students played an important role in expanding the ranks of revolutionary organizations and spreading revolutionary awareness across the country. Many were responsible for distributing revolutionary and progressive publications among people, to scatter all the dreams and desires they carried for change in society, to be informed and to inform others. With all the deficiencies present, extensive student organizations and institutions were formed. These organizations were very active in arranging parades and demonstrations. After the revolution, with the command of a cultural revolution in universities, the struggles of school and university students tangled more than before and there was loss in almost every aspect. It was all about fighting a reactionary order. This order was about the study of Islam, the life of the Imams and clerics that had replaced idiotic courses about kings and their lives.Iranians' fake pride was supposed to turn from worshiping godlike kings to Mecca, the prophet and the 12 Shi’ite Imams. To replace the system's symbol from the Immortal Guard to the Revolutionary Guard. Students also had to decide whether they are with or against the regime.
In those years few students were pro-regime and most were against. During the month of Ordibehesht of 1357 (April-May 1978) when universities were attacked, many students helped the universities’ students and faculties to the point of losing their lives. A few years later, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s prisons were full of students whose crimes were supporting certain political organizations or participation in the opposition movement. Many of them were executed in the1360s (1980s). In Kurdestan, after the revolution, schools turned into centers of Kurdish resistance against the central government. Schools became centers for organizing campaigns for people's struggles and protest marches.
All the above illustrates the active role of the students throughout different courses of time. It represents the zest of youth and energy that they bring to people's struggle. The students' movement has been an important and determining factor in the youth movement. After the fall of the 1357 (1978) revolution, for a long time a suffocating and oppressed atmosphere lingeredin the country,until around 2nd of Khordad 1376 (June1997) when the desire to change, brought many of the students to the ballot boxes to vote for Khatami. They thought that their votes would bring the change they wanted. However, very soon disappointment ensued and on the 18th of Tir 1378 (18 July 1999) a rupture between students and the regime in the university dormitories prompted Khatami to be nicknamed "the Liar" among students. With this a lot of disappointment and shame as the majority of the votes for "the Liar" had come from students and the younger generation in general. Of course, this was the Islamic regime's new tactic to control and waste the direction of people's energy especially that of the youth. In the past 10 years, there have been many ups and downs in Iranian society. Students have also changed since the 1388 (2009) election. Many of the voters were youth who thought that by voting, they could get rid of Ahmadinejad. Looking at it from this angle, things are similar to the 2nd of Khordad 1376 election (23 May 1997) but the differences are also evident. This time around, the students were not only active and full of energy as before but they were also fearless, fed up with the situation and now had more experience.
The voting this time was not because they knew Moussavi and Karubi well but purely to stop Ahmadinejad from getting elected again. This time they were again disgusted with the misuse of their votes and took to the streets. In a day of chaos, the first tear gas was dropped and the first bullet fired towards the people and students were among those killed, bloodied, broken and hurt.The Students’ cries were not any louder than others but for the opposition forces, their presence was hard and heavy. Supposedly, the generation that was educated in their system would be obedient and followers of the Islamic authorities and values but the extensive presence of the wilful students in the streets was the biggest defeat to these values and authorities. Another generation has surfaced, knowing many secrets of the struggle of Khordad and the summer of 1388 (2009). Youth who at a blink, cry out, aim and organize themselves. They are no longer the defeated students of the 2nd of Khordad 1376 (1997 ). The electrical charge shines in their eyes. The chants and songs of change are on their lips. In their tightly closed fists are the cries of a crushed generation. They are waiting. Waiting for something to happen. Waiting for a moment. Waiting for a spark in a university, school, street, town square or park, and that is when these youths will turn the spark into a flame that will burn all aspects of oppression, lies and torture.
13th of Aban (4 November 4th) this year holds the key to all of these struggles.13th of Aban in Iran's history has diverse significance and each of the political forces present makes this date exceptional each day.Believers of oppressors Ahmadinejad and Moussavi and their followers want to introduce and attribute this day to the date Imam Khomeini was deported to Turkey in 1342 (1963) and the date pro-Imam students took over the American Embassy in 1358 (1979), and feed us these false values. The importance of the 13th of Aban is not down to their Imam's deportation in 1342, nor the take over of the American Embassy in1358. Our 13th of Aban involves none of these cunning games, the tricks that brought these to a society where our young have no future.
For our generation, what is memorable is 13th of Aban 1357 (4 November 1978). The day when school students in solidarity with other students shut the schools and headed to the universities, dragging their teachers with them in battle with the Shah's regime, until they were gunned down and bombarded with bullets. The red blood of the solidarity of the students on 13 Aban1357 has determined our direction towards13 Aban1388 (4 November 2009). A direction that reveals the hearts of the tyrants of force and deception. A direction that both Ahmadinejad’s camp and Moussavi's camp fear, and strive to block, again through force or deceit. The color of our real path to liberation is red. The blood color of our solidarity should be the symbol of our determined and uncompromising struggle. We shall travel this path. This year, we will travel the distance. This year, we will scream this trail. This year we will carry a heavy load. We have struggled and fought many days alongside people, chanted slogans with students, cried with our hardworking fathers and mothers, built trenches with our friends, but this year on 13th of Aban, it is for us to host everyone else. We should write our red slogans on the walls. Yell, and invite people to fight back. Distribute our declarations and magazines to inform and elevate people's knowledge of the enemy and his cagey methods and to raise awareness of the true nature of the green wave. We still have no managers, office or organization. We have to build all of these. Once again, we will register our historical role on13th of Aban, but not in the name of the regime, and not in the name of Moussavi and the green wave!
Over the past 30 years of the Islamic Republic’s reign in Iran the execution of minors has been one of the most controversial and malicious acts incorporated in the system. This vindictive and murderous regime shows no mercy towards children. Under the laws enforced by this regime, convicted children are kept in the unsuitable environment of prison and are physically and emotionally abused on a regular basis. As soon as they reach the age of 18 they are executed.
In reaction to such barbaric behaviour, people in Iran and many countries worldwide have voiced their resentment and hatred towards the regime responsible for these abominable acts. Furthermore, the Islamic Republic of Iran has faced vast international protests for the termination of such executions. Iran’s judicial system is remote from any contemporary judicial system and can be more closely linked to that of medieval times. This barbaric regime provides the most unjust and imprecise trials for the defendants and the families of victims. In addition, there is no accurate investigation or analysis of such proceedings. Furthermore the judiciary of Iran leaves the faith of the defendant’s life in the hands of the victim’s family. Is it not enough that the victim’s family have already suffered loss? But that they must also make a critical decision, for another individual’s life, in an unstable emotional state. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, the judiciary is founded on the old-fashioned “eye for an eye” notion. This being said, a man’s blood in the IRI system is worth double that of a woman, when it comes to paying blood money. In spite of many international oppositional movements against the system administered in the Islamic Republic of Iran, many minors have been executed in the past few years. Behnoud Shojai is the most recent case of minor execution in Iran that acknowledged worldwide to stimulate international awareness and hatred towards the regime. According to most recent news, three individuals have been rescued from execution in the past week. The victims’ families have pardoned them and requested that their execution be annuled. Amir Khaleghi, 18, who committed a murder at the age of 16 and Mostafa Naghdi, also convicted of murder, are two such individuals who were awaiting reaching the age of 18 to be executed. However, their lives were spared thanks to the victims’ families’ view opposing execution. The sister of a murdered middle aged woman travelled from the United States to Iran to attend court. She opposed the execution of the accused killer, Majid, because he was a juvenile at the time of the crime. She has asked Majid’s family for blood money that she will spend to create a charitable foundation to cherish her sister’s memory.
This is the reaction of the people who are fed up with misdemeanors, murders and the Islamic Republic overall. This is the response of victims’ families who have lost loved ones and are faced with a contemptuous justice system. Not only does this system pass unjust and feeble judgments, but it also fails to sympathize with a victim’s family. Instead, the justice system drags these families into another complex dilemma by subjecting them to deciding the fate of the defendant. Unable to bear the death of their loved ones, they are catapulted into a decision to take the life of another individual. The International Committee Against Execution (ICAE) would like to thank the mourning families of Massood Rouzbahani, Ali Malekpour, and Taj-Parvar for their humane and civilized act in sparing the life of those on death row. In addition, the ICAE would also like to thank all those who have been continuously fighting to put an end to the death penalty. This is just part of our movement to eliminate premeditated murders and bloodthirstiness committed by the government.
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