Keep the Kahrizak Case Open!
by Siavash Sayid

A few weeks ago, WPI published an announcement emphasizing the importance of keeping the Kahrizak case open. MFI immediately published that article in English. We did this although our resources were very limited and we had our own schedules to meet. We did this because we saw an importance in the idea of keeping the Kahrizak case open.

Exactly for the reasons that the Islamic regime wrestled to close this case, it was and is necessary for us to “keep it open.” The difference is that those thugs understood the importance of “closing the Kahrizak case” better than us who should “keep the Kahrizak case open”!

To keep the Kahrizak case open is important for variety of reasons. Here, in a series of notes I am going to formulate why we, the MFI membership, think keeping the Kahrizak case open is important, and has to evolve to a movement with distinguished objectives and why the Kahrizak case is connected to our overall struggle against the Islamic republic.

Note One: While the Islamic Republic regarding the Kahrizak crimes has only confessed to a fraction of its barbarism, still for the very first time ever it has confessed to its savage nature, and under the pressure of revolutionary masses, has incriminated itself. I know many of those who read these lines would say:

But rape, torture, terror and murder is how Islamists have survived 30 years of constant political and economical crisis, this is how they enforced the gender apartheid, suppressed the workers movement, the students rebellion, and has condemned our society to live an unbearable national punishment, both economically and socially. Some would say hej! Who has forgotten Jahãngir Ghale Minãndoãb, Sayid Soltanpur, Tumãj? …….who doesn’t remember Sanandaj, Gonbad, Tehran?….Which one of us hasn’t heard “yã ro sari ..yã to sari” ? Who doesn’t think of Xavarãn and remain sane?

And you are right, but the fact that you and I know what has happened in the past 31 years does not mean that the whole world does too. The worlds’ opinion during all these bloody years has been influenced or even manipulated by the international mass media, has been fed with either the Islamic propaganda or their counterparts, the Western cultural relativists, as well as war propaganda for the dehumanization of Iran! Don’t forget that it was only a year ago that the Western warmongers were singing “bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” and not many in the western public said “What the hell are you saying?

It is only a few months since people around the world, and at this point only the forerunners of the international society, have started to realize, to see, that what they have bought as the history of contemporary Iran is one of the most ridiculous historic lies ever. Now eyes are being open to the unbearable pain of our people, and the continued struggle for a humane society in the last 31 years. Ironically the western mass media still refer to this Islamic regime as “Islamic revolution” and ignore the fact that Islamic regime was only product of a defeated revolution, a revolution countered by the most reactionary political entity, the Islamists, and not the contrary.

International opinion regarding the ongoing revolution is of outmost importance. International opinion is important not only for consequences of its direct support in our demonstrations in the streets, squares, market places and outside Islamic republics embassies, not only because this potentially decisive “outside” political force can and should force the western governments to align their policies with the will of our revolution, but even because this public opinion can in a tactical level become a force to help us to open up the prisons of the Islamic regime. Imagine what would happen if we succeed in opening thousands of legal cases against the savagery of this regime.

We believe that Kahrizak gives us political strategic leverage over the gangs of thugs, rapists and murderers, and if we utilize this leverage smartly, many other cases – we have many more than 150,000 cases of executions, and 100s of 1000s torture cases to open and bury the Islamic regime under legal criminal cases. We need to start this in the international arena and try to move the practical equivalence of this case, this movement to Iran.

We must open the gates of the Islamic regime’s torture pits. The Kahrizak case, if handled correctly, will lead to that.

We need to keep Kahrizak case open.

I will continue these notes on “Keep Kahrizak Case Open,” emphasizing different aspects of its importance, and the role it can play to further our struggle to change the balance of power, and appreciate your comments.