Mission Free Iran Welcomes the Opening of the 20 June Campaign in Solidarity with Political Prisoners in Iran

[FARSI]
Mission Free Iran (MFI) welcomes the second annual 20 June campaign to support political prisoners in Iran. Last year, our organization, together with the International Campaign For Political Prisoners in Iran (CFPPI), and later on other organizations and institutions, conducted a passionate campaign with the main demand of immediate and unconditional release of political prisoners. Now once again, we, together with our friends from CFPPI, are organizing for 20 June 2012.

Last year, when we were preparing with our friends for the 20 June event, we knew that our action under the existing circumstances, would in the best case lead to a degree of public attention to the atrocities committed by the Islamic Republic. We knew that although the release of political prisoners under dictatorial regimes like the Islamic Republic of Iran, Syria, Egypt, and Libya, is indeed possible, it is dependent on the creation of different circumstances and a special political balance in the society between the political and social forces: the dictatorial regime on one side, and the forces defending humanity and human rights on the other side.

Planned and conscious change according to a road map that strives to achieve this balance is possible. During the campaign to save Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani — for which our organization from the start was a key implementer of the activities that prevented the stoning of Sakineh and, in practice, prevented all stoning in general in Iran — we witnessed the possibility of pushing back the most feral of regimes.We consider ourselves loyal to that  belief as well as we believe that the Islamic regime’s survival fundamentally depends on imprisonment, torture, handcuffs and shackles and canes, torture and rape; we consider this understanding the compass for our organization’s activities.

During last year’s campaign, we worked to pressure governments, the United Nations, the European Union, official and unofficial and governmental and non-governmental organizations to take position and condemn the atrocities of the Islamic regime. We will continue to exert this pressure, but we basically and fundamentally regard the freedom of political prisoners and the implementing and guaranteeing of political freedoms in Iran or any other place to be a direct issue of the masses of the working class, the impoverished, and all freedom-loving loving people.

Organizing and mobilizing people against Islamic barbarism in Iran is a principle for us, and our direction is to mobilize and organize people wherever they are in the direction of our revolutionary objectives. Now we, together and in coordination with the Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran, welcome the second annual 20 June campaign at a time when the Islamic Republic knows very well that revolution is imminent. The wave of arrests and execution sentences, the threats, and raising of the gallows, are among those indicators of the Islamic Republic’s absolute lack of future.

We know very well that over the course of the past year, the political map of the world and the balance of political powers both inside Iran and internationally have changed dramatically. These changes, even if in the future, depend on the final results of contemporary revolutions, and their probable positive effects with regard to respect for human rights. Considering that at the moment there exists between 14,000-40,000 political prisoners in Syria and 12,000-15,000 political prisoners in Egypt; considering the disclosure of the nameless and addressless prisons of Maliki’s government in Iraq which contain an undisclosed number of illegally detained political prisoners; considering the crackdown against freedom-loving people in Bahrain and the recent events in Libya and Yemen…; considering the shadow that war and the threat by Israeli and Western governments to attack Iran casts over the ongoing savage violations of human rights in Iran; and considering the fact that advocates of human rights all over the world, the 99 Percent movement, still neither recognizes its universal mission nor has organizational or political revolutionary leadership; without any doubt, we will have difficulties ahead of us during this round of our activities for 20 June. We will try, however, through leveraging our achievements from last year, to pursue our objectives for this year’s campaign: the creation, production, dissemination, advertisement towards inside and outside of Iran, recruitment of members, organization of protest actions, and building bridges between our activities regarding human rights in Iran, the revolutionary movements, and the 99 Percent movement.

The names of those responsible for different areas of our activities for the 20 June campaign will be published soon.

On behalf of Mission Free Iran,
Ahmed Fatemi
Director, Mission Free Iran
22 January 2012