Trump and Netanyahu both sent Persian New Year (3/20/2025) greetings to the Iranian people. Like the old folktale of “Little Red Riding Hood” when she says, “What a big mouth you have,” and the wolf replies, “The better to eat you with, my dear” as he jumps up and swallows her, these greetings are a sinister and cynical move by two butchers slaughtering people/children across Gaza that has dire life and death stakes for the people of Iran, the Middle East, and ultimately the world.
The objective impact and likely intent of these greetings are to fish in Iran’s troubled waters—to appeal to people in Iran resisting the regime’s extreme repression, especially its rising executions of prisoners, including of its political prisoners. The repression continues to be met with courageous though still limited resistance calling for an end to all executions, mainly in a movement led by prisoners themselves and former political prisoners, including in the Iranian diaspora, as indicated in the March 8 statement at the IEC website “War Against Women, Women Against War, A Collective Call.” Israeli and U.S. threats and attacks put Iran’s regime up against the wall and enable it to whip up its own reactionary social base into hyper Iranian nationalism, and to attack anyone in Iran who opposes the regime as “foreign agents” of Israel and Western imperialists. There are those who support Israel and the U.S. as part of the poisonous “might makes right” mentality alongside their (justified) hatred of the dark ages capitalist Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). This is a polarization that needs to change in the interest of the people of Iran and the world, as it is a reactionary/harmful “choice” to side with one or the other oppressive and repressive force of Israel/U.S. or the IRI and its so-called Axis of Resistance.
While it is beyond the IEC’s scope to analyze the highly fluid and complex situation unfolding in the Middle East, this 3+ minutes Times of India video (3/19/2025) briefly summarizes some aspects of the extremely dangerous situation in the U.S.’s new strikes on Yemen’s Houthi Islamicists, their response, and the threats against Iran.
March 19, 2025. Video: Times of India
Trump has said last week that Iran will be held responsible for anything done by its Houthi ally. There are chilling reports of active preparations for “a major regional conflict with Iran.”1
Defiant Actions Mark Persian New Year Celebrations
Raucous crowds, sometimes in the thousands, filled urban streets and rural valleys in Iran in celebrations of the eve of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, which defied prohibitions by the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). Some videos on social media show crowds chanting or singing against the regime, and clashes with authorities who tried to stop the celebrations in Tehran, West Azerbaijan and East Azerbaijan.2
In significant actions, political prisoners chanted or sang inside Evin and Ghezel Hesar prisons, while support actions took place outside the gates of Evin Prison in Tehran (the capital) and Lakan Prison in Iran’s northern Gilan province.
In front of Evin Prison, Narges Mohammadi, the 2023 Nobel Peace laureate who is on temporary medical leave and in imminent danger of being dragged back into Evin, bravely burned a noose outside the prison gates. Here is an excerpt from her statement.
For many years in Evin Prison, we the prisoners used to burn sticks and jump over it and joyously sing-like the rest of the people of Iran and shout:
"Your redness will be mine and my yellowness be yours."3
Tonight I decided instead… to burn nooses next to the Evin Prison walls.… I shout: We will not rest till we put an end to the Execution Republic! We will not rest till we free all political and prisoners of conscience! We will not rest till we defeat the Islamic Republic and bring victory for the people of Iran!
Narges Mohammadi burns noose outside Evin Prison, March 1, 2025. Photo: Screengrab of video by @nargesfnd
From behind those same prison gates, political prisoner Golrokh Iraee issued a hopeful New Year’s message and wrote:
The women of Evin, and the prisoners of Wards 4 and 8, welcomed the New Year with one heart and one mind, singing revolutionary songs and chanting slogans in the prison yard in solidarity with all freedom fighters against tyranny and oppression over the last 120 years, and with the families of the victims.
May we welcome the Spring on the path of, and in memory of, those who —[were] heedless of their own comfort and safety— sacrificed their lives to bring the Spring of Liberation and Equality to the oppressed masses.
Political prisoners must be freed!
14044 2025]—The Year of Revolution to Overthrow this Whole System!
1404 [2025] — The Year to End this Evil Regime!
No to Execution!
#Revolution
In the huge Ghezel Hesar prison in Karaj, where prisoners say thousands are on death row and where the “No to Executions Tuesday” hunger strikes began (now in its 60th week, the strike has spread to at least 38 prisons across Iran), political prisoners chanted “Freedom, Freedom, Freedom,” "Red flames say no to executions,” “The message of Chaharshanbe Suri is down with dictatorship,” “Khamenei, Zahak, I will bury you under the ground.”5 They managed to send the audio out to the world via cellphone.
Video on social media shows burning of nooses in the bonfire in Urmia, West Azerbaijan Province, while chanting slogans including "no to execution" and "Woman, Life, Freedom."
Activists in the Iranian diaspora posted a video on March 17 (the eve of “No to Executions Tuesday” and Chaharshanbe Suri) in which they burned nooses.
Executions Accelerate
On March 18, the UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Iran delivered a report which said, “The pace [of executions] is accelerating with at least 169 known executions identified in January and February alone. Should this alarming rate remain consistent, the total number of executions could exceed 1,000 this year, a chilling threshold that demands a collective global response.” In 2024, at least 975 people were executed in Iran, a 17% increase from the at least 834 executions recorded the previous year, according to a joint report released by the Iran Human Rights Organization (IHRNGO) and Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM).6
In the dangerous swirl of the IRI’s executions and bloody repression at the same time as Trump orders deadly attacks and issues threats against Iran and the whole Middle East region, the orientation from the IEC’s Emergency Appeal is more urgent than ever:
In the U.S., we have a special responsibility to unite very broadly against this vile repression by the IRI, and to actively oppose any war moves by the U.S. government that would bring even more unbearable suffering to the people of Iran.