These days the powerful chant of “death to dictator” and “down with Islamic regime” can be heard all over Iran. Large numbers of people have come to the streets in more than one hundred cities and demonstrating and struggling and chanting. The number of cities is increasing daily. From Tehran to Mashhad, Isfahan, Shiraz, Tabriz, Urmia, Sanandaj and Saqqez, demonstrations against the Islamic regime have been going on for more than a week. The protest against the heinous murder of 22 years old Mahsa Amini sparked these demonstrations. The Guidance Patrol, the morality police of Islamic regime of Iran’s Law Enforcement Command, arrested Mahsa (Zhina) for allegedly not wearing the hijab (the Islamic face veil) in accordance with government standards. Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old girl from Saqqez a city in Kurdistan, hours later, went into coma and was taken to Kasra Hospital in Tehran, by the guards. The specialist doctors announced that he had suffered a brain injury. Mahsa Amini never regained consciousness and died on the hospital bed on 16th of September, three days after her arrest.
This is not the first crime of the Islamic government. The Islamic regime has been committing crimes in the country for more than forty years. Islamic laws such as hijab are imposed on women. Women and all people are widely against Islamic government and laws.
In recent days, dozens of people have been shot dead in demonstrations and protests. But people do not intend to stop protesting and in large numbers counter attack the government armed forces and push them back. .
In these protests, hundreds of people from different cities have been arrested, among them activists such as Muzaffar Saleh Niya, Lotfollah Ahmadi and Khalil Khosravi, who are workers activists in Sanandaj city, and Reza Sharifi, who is a retired teacher in this city. Also, Leila Abbasi, a member of the board of directors of cultural association in Bijar, has been arrested.
Free Them Now (FTN) defends a free and equal and free society. FTN defends the right to organize, strike and protest. We demand the release of all arrested and all political prisoners. Currently, a large number of teachers, workers, students and women are in the prisons of the Islamic regime.
This government should be boycotted worldwide for violating the most basic human rights and its leaders should be tried for crimes against humanity. We ask the workers’ and teachers’ unions in the world to defend the demand of expelling the Islamic regime from ILO and to promote this demand. The expulsion of this government from ILO prepares the space for protests by the workers and people in Iran. The killing of people by the Islamic regime of Iran must be condemned. We call on all the workers and human organisations to press for the release of those arrested during these protests. Every union and organization that supports the struggles and demands of workers and teachers and people in Iran must demand the expulsion of this government from the International Labor Organization and its worldwide diplomatic and political boycott. This is an effective and concrete step in defending the wishes of the people in Iran.
All prisoners and recent arrestees must be released immediately. Protests and demonstrations are the unconditional right of the people.
Free Them Now
shahla.daneshfar2@gmail.com
September 23, 2022