From the International Emergency Campaign to Free Iran’s Political Prisoners

Spreading the International Emergency Appeal – Around the World and on the Airwaves

August 16, 2021 | revcom.us

 

Editors’ note: We received the following from the International Emergency Campaign to Free Iran’s Political Prisoners

August 13, 2021

IEC Emergency Appeal Impacts Nouri Protests in Stockholm, Sweden

From August 11 to 13, the trial of Hamid Nouri began in Stockholm, Sweden.  Nouri was being tried for his role in the massacre of at least 5,000 political prisoners in 1988 when he was an assistant to a prosecutor at Iran’s Gohardasht Prison in Iran.

The trial started just days after the inauguration of Ebrahim Raisi as president of the Islamic Republic of Iran.  In 1988, Raisi was a member of the “death commission” directing these executions, and this trial is implicitly about his role in those massacres.*

Activists with the Burn the Cage/Free the Birds prisoner support movement in Europe joined the protests in front of the Stockholm courthouse.  They displayed a gigantic enlargement of the Emergency Appeal as published in the current Summer issue of the New York Review of Books.

The Mothers of Khavaran, some of whom are family members of the victims of the 1988 massacre, brought posters of their lost loved ones to display in front of the courthouse.

*For more see, Press Release from the Center for Human Rights in Iran: “Swedish Trial of Iranian Prosecutor Offers Historic Opportunity to Shed Light on Iran’s 1988 Massacre,”August 4, 2021

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The New York Review of Books ad of Emergency Appeal taken up in Toronto, Canada

On Thursday August 5 (coinciding with Raisi's inauguration), a protest took place in Toronto, Canada against the Islamic Republic’s shooting down of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 in January 2020.  Supporters of Burn the Cage movement made a large poster with the printout of the Emergency Appeal as published in the current Summer issue of The New York Review of Books.  The poster said “1988 MASSACRE OF POLITICAL PRISONERS ORDERED BY DEATH COMMISSION THAT EBRAHIM RAISI WAS KEY MEMBER OF.  WE MUST NOT ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN AGAIN.”

Spread the ad of the International Emergency Appeal

These are examples of what everyone can do in spreading the ad of the Emergency Appeal – taking it into protests and amplifying its impact at the grassroots. Go to www.FreeIransPoliticalPrisonersNow.org and click the “Download PDF” tab on the right for a PDF of the New York Review of Books ad.

Email photos and reports of such actions in your area to the Campaign at: FreeIransPoliticalPrisonersNow@gmail.com

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Spreading the International Emergency Campaign on the airwaves

KPFK: New developments in the fight to Free Iran's Political Prisoners

Larry Everest and Mariam Claren on the Michael Slate Show–August 13

There have been important new developments in the fight to free Iran’s political prisoners – including the publication of a very important Appeal in the New York Review of Books – and in the Iranian people's fight against oppression. So on today’s show host Michael Slate talks with two members of the International Emergency Campaign to Free Iran’s Political Prisoners about these developments – Mariam Claren (daughter of Nahid Taghavi) and Larry Everest.