Editors’ Note for New Readers: As this update from our volunteer correspondent notes, hundreds of thousands of Iranians, especially women, students, and youth, are continuing to demonstrate remarkable courage, creativity, and growing determination in the face of the Islamic regime’s seriously escalating repression, with whole sections of people calling for an end to the regime.
In this context, the orientation of the statement by the Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist), People of the World: Take up the Cry of Revolution from Iran as Your Own!, is of heightened and decisive importance, and we draw our readers’ attention to it. This was issued for the occasion of the worldwide protests in support of the uprising in Iran on October 22. As the CPI (MLM) has written:
To finally put an end to the seemingly endless suffering of Iran’s people requires a real revolution, made by millions of people and led by a revolutionary vanguard with the aim of overthrowing the Islamic theocratic fascist regime and liberating Iran out of the murderous fabric of the capitalist-imperialist system. This requires a communist revolution and establishing a “New Socialist Republic.”
At this decisive moment, it is even more critical for growing millions around the world to support the righteous uprising in Iran. At the same time, it is also crucial to oppose imperialist efforts to take advantage of the situation to advance their reactionary agendas, especially that of the U.S., which has caused so much suffering and death in Iran and the Middle East. The U.S. imperialists are not and will never be a force for good in the world! And all calls for U.S.-backed intervention need to be opposed, along with the lackeys of the U.S. like the monarchists and so-called “liberal-democrats.”
In this context, we want to continue highlighting the reposting of an article from Bob Avakian, BA, “Imperialist Parasitism and ‘Democracy’: Why So Many Liberals and Progressives Are Shameless Supporters of ‘Their’ Imperialism,” originally published in March 2022. It is highly relevant in relation to the heroic uprising of the masses of people now taking place in Iran against the reactionary Islamic fundamentalist regime. It is crucial to understand and oppose the actual nature and role of the U.S. as the world’s most murderously oppressive and exploitative capitalist-imperialist power. In relation to the struggle in Iran, there is an urgent need to resist the efforts to bring the uprising in Iran under the wing of these U.S. imperialists and those aligned with them, particularly at this moment when the U.S. may be shifting toward a more confrontational posture against Iran’s Islamic Republic, not in order to liberate the Iranian people, but to advance the imperialist interests in the region and world.1 Instead, we need to help direct this mass uprising toward a truly emancipating revolution, as the Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist), basing itself on the new communism brought forward by BA, are striving to do.
An Urgent Emergency: Courageous Protests Continue
—Nationwide Toll Now Over 440 Dead, 18,000 Arrested
The uprising in Iran, now entering its 11th straight week, has seen anti-government protests in 156 cities and more than 140 universities across Iran.2
It is the most significant outpouring of protest and resistance the Islamic Republic has faced in its 43-year history, and these fascist theocrats are sharply escalating their murderous efforts to maintain their oppressive, misogynist rule. Over 448 overwhelmingly unarmed protesters have now been cut down by the regime, some 63 of them children.3 Thousands more have been wounded or injured. Over 18,000 have been illegitimately arrested or detained, including 565 students, who now face draconian abuse, torture, and possibly even death.4
The uprising was triggered by the murder of one woman, Mahsa Amini, for not fully covering her hair. Yet this single death embodied the regime’s ever-present patriarchal degradation and abuse of women, who are legally treated as less than fully and equally human, and even forbidden from jogging, dancing in public, or riding a bicycle. Women can be forced into marriage at 13 years old, yet can’t get a divorce without the "Okay" from a male judge.5 Women have been on the front lines of the protests and now there are reports they’re being subject to sexual abuse while in custody as well.6
Prominent artists, writers, actors, musicians, lawyers and voices of conscience have been arrested. The courageous rapper Toomaj Salehi remains in prison, but because the regime is proceeding against him in secret and refusing to allow his family lawyer to view his case, there are conflicting reports about his status. However, according to BBC Persian, it appears that he now faces the very ominous charge of “corruption on earth.”
The Islamic Republic has a track record of mass murder, including executing over 5,000 political prisoners in a few months in 1988 alone. Now it’s escalating its repression, deploying its military forces, and threatening even greater crimes. This is an urgent emergency!
Military Escalation in Kurdistan, Murderous Assault in Baluchistan
The oppressed Kurdish and Baluch peoples of Kurdistan in Iran’s northwest, and Sistan and Baluchistan in its southeast, have waged some of the fiercest, widespread protests against the Islamic Republic, and have been subjected to the bloodiest repression. Human rights organizations report that the government has “systematically and disproportionately” targeted minorities during the uprising and that 104 Kurds have been killed, at least 42 of them over the past week, as a result of “direct fire from the Iranian government forces.” Over 100 have been massacred in Baluchistan.7
This state violence took a leap beginning November 19, when the regime deployed armored military and special forces units of its Islamic “Revolutionary Guard” Corps (IRGC) for the first time to Kurdistan, starting in the city of Mahabad—while cutting off the internet to prevent the world from witnessing its atrocities.
The Center for Human Rights in Iran called it, “the worst levels of violence by state security forces so far in response to growing protests.” A message from Javanrud read: “The situation in this city is more catastrophic than anyone has heard. Ten IRGC combat helicopters have been flying over the city since the morning, transporting troops and ammunition. All entrances and exits of the city have been closed by the military…"8
In response there were protests in a number of cities and at Kurdistan University in Sanandaj as well as widespread strikes and business closures.
On November 25, protesters were viciously attacked following Friday prayer services in Zahedan in Sistan-Baluchistan, and there were protests in five other cities in the province as well.
The regime is also trying to fracture the unity of the uprising by smearing Kurdish resisters as “terrorists” and “separatists,” but there have been moving acts of solidarity with the Kurdish people in the face of this latest assault. In a Tehran neighborhood people chanted, “Mahabad, Kurdistan, the eyes and shining light of Iran” “Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!” People in Mazandaran Province sent medical supplies to Kurdish protesters. And a prominent Baluch religious figure and protest leader expressed his solidarity with the people of Kurdistan.9
Protests Continue in Face of Deadly Repression
The regime’s internet shutdowns are making it more difficult to assess the full scope of the uprising or the regime’s crimes. But some news continues to get out. For instance, on November 20, strikes and gatherings were reported at 20 campuses across Iran. On November 24, there were at least 16 protests in nine cities across eight provinces and on November 25, at least 10 protests in nine cities across four provinces.10
On November 26, the Truck Drivers’ Union reportedly called for a nationwide strike as steel and auto workers also stopped work. In recent weeks workers at dozens of industrial units, including automobile manufacturing, household appliances, heavy industries, petrochemicals, oil, gas, and sugarcane, struck, while shopkeepers and business owners in dozens of cities also shut down in support of the uprising. 11
On November 19, with the world watching the World Cup in Qatar, Iran’s soccer players did not sing the country’s national anthem, as Iranian fans who supported the uprising battled in and outside the stadium with pro-regime fanatics.
In Tehran, two very prominent actresses, Hengameh Ghaziani and Katayoun Riahi, were arrested for taking off their head scarves and taking part in protests. Before she was taken into custody, Ghaziani posted,
How many children, teenagers and young people have you killed—is it not enough with the bloodshed?... I hate you, and your historical reputation... This may be my last post. From this moment on, whatever happens to me, know that I will be with the people of Iran until my last breath.12
Many Iranian actors and filmmakers have called for their release, writing:
The artist mirrors the people, the people voice the artist.
We are the voice and we will stay.
There is no prison artist.
There's no prison athlete.
There's no prison teacher.
There is no prison student.
There is no prison student.
There is no prison for people.
Two Things Urgently Needed…
Right now, the Iranian people have a very rare opportunity to break through and actually win liberation—an opening the fascist Islamic Republic is trying to drown in blood.
This is a screaming emergency. For the Iranian people to turn back the regime’s blood-soaked assault and win—a victory that would inspire and reverberate worldwide—they urgently need, as the International Emergency Campaign to Free Iran’s Political Prisoners Now (IEC) has called for, nothing less than all people and organizations of conscience around the world to speak out in a “Global People's Outcry in Support of Iranian People, and Freedom for Iran’s Political Prisoners.”
It is very important that prominent artists and voices of conscience have spoken out in support of the Iranian people, including PEN America, which has consistently fought for Iran’s imprisoned writers and artists, as well as actors and musicians including Mark Ruffalo, Ariana Grande, Angelina Jolie, Justin Bieber, Penelope Cruz, and others, including Coldplay.
Yet much more is needed—NOW! Where are the rappers in the U.S. speaking out and demanding Toomaj Salehi be freed?? Where are the feminists, advocates for women’s rights, and “progressives” demanding that Tehran’s theocrats stop murdering women and unarmed protesters?
As the IEC writes, “those of us living in the U.S. have a special responsibility to support the Iranian people given the enormous suffering this country has inflicted on them for decades, from the 1953 CIA coup, to U.S. support for Iraq in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, to ongoing sanctions and military threats. Ignoring the Iranian people's just, heroic struggle is unconscionable chauvinism. Refusing to support it amounts to condoning the barbaric suffering and injustices being inflicted on over 80 million human beings, especially women.”
The regime’s murderous assault on the uprising has deepened the chasm between it and masses of Iranian people and continues to spark calls for an end to the Islamic Republic and for revolution. The situation is focusing up the question of how can the people deal with the massive violence the regime is unleashing, and how can these bloody oppressors actually be brought down, and what kind of change is needed.
In this situation, as stated by the Communist Party of Iran (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist), there is the potential and basis for maximizing gains towards an actual revolution and a liberating future in Iran.14 But as they state in unvarnished terms, this potential will not be realized without scientific revolutionary communist leadership, which is now being provided by the CPI(MLM) on the basis of the new communism of Bob Avakian, gaining leadership of the masses. It is—and remains extremely urgent to spread this leadership and its works, publications and statements15—in Iran and across the worldwide Iranian diaspora.