On the 27th Anniversary of the Massacre of Political Prisoners in Iran

The life-and-death message of thousands of political prisoners of the 1980's:

Revolutionary overthrow of the oppressive regime of the Islamic Republic!

The oppressive anti-women regime of the Islamic Republic has executed more than 1900 prisoners including political prisoners since 2014. Once more they have retained the number one position on a world scale! In the past six months, 570 prisoners have been hung!

Since Rohani’s presidency and the Iranian regime’s efforts to convince the US and European imperialists that they can be relied on as a "legitimate" and powerful state in helping them to come out of the capitalist and Middle East crisis, the regime has intensified the arrests and executions of their opponents. In turn the imperialist powers, in order to get out of the swamps of the Middle East crisis they are facing, and in order to recover from their capitalist crisis, shut their eyes and silently endorsed the executions, the intensification of the subordination of women, the imprisonment of the opposition, the repression and imprisonment of workers and toiling people by the Islamic state, as they have done throughout the past 37 years since the Islamic Regime came to power – and especially the massacre of political prisoners in the 198o's and particularly in the summer of 1988.

From when the Islamic regime first came to power, they announced that women must wear the hijab, the symbol of slavery, and enforced their barbaric and reactionary laws against women. They enforced organised patriarchal violence at home, work and in the society, and when they proclaimed all the revolutionary and militant parties and organisations as illegal, and under the name of the "Islamic Culture revolution", they attacked the universities, and when they were arresting and imprisoning the revolutionary youth..... they told the masses of people that the subjugation of women, oppression, torture and execution are all an inseparable part of their identity. And only through these means have they been able to continue their filthy existence.

Twenty-seven years have passed from these most horrific events of contemporary Iran. During these events, thousands of political prisoners were executed in less than two months. The best sons and daughters of the people secretly were hung or executed behind the prison walls. The extent of their crimes were so enormous that in order to hide any evidence, the executed prisoners were buried in mass graves under the cover of night. They hoped that by physically eliminating thousands of political prisoners, they could eliminate them from historical memory and hide from the new generation the prisoners’ goal of building a world without oppression and exploitation, where they laid down their lives in struggle to achieve this goal. But the regime was not able to hide such a horrific crime from the people. Constant exposures by revolutionary and militant forces as well as the struggle of the families of the executed prisoners did not allow this crime to be forgotten. Revealing such a crime became another powerful reason for the masses to understand the anti-people and anti-women nature of this oppressive regime and to expose them even more.

A large portion of these political prisoners were women, those who rebelled against the rotten ruling anti-women system. These women were prosecuted not only for fighting against oppression and exploitation, but they were also tortured and sexually violated, because they were women, with the aim of teaching reactionary lessons to women in the society as a whole. But militant and revolutionary women turned the prison into a battle ground against the religious reactionary rulers. Torture, rape and execution could not make them surrender.

In the past seventeen years- ten years of the massacres- we were able to establish the slogan of "we will neither forgive nor forget" as a naked truth against those who deliberately tried hard to make this horrific crime of the Islamic Republic regime of Iran be forgotten. It was our organisation that first put this slogan into the political arena of Iran, and since then, the activists of our organisation have been severely attacked by the reformist trend, because these reformists know very well that this slogan leaves no room for compromise with the criminal regime of the Islamic Republic. The presentation of this slogan by revolutionary and radical women expresses this undeniable truth that the women can and must raise the flag of radical and fundamental change in the society, and the fulfilment of this slogan must remain as one of the most important demands of women and all the people of Iran.

We women, by continuing our struggle, will show that we will not forget nor forgive these brutal massacred thousands of women political prisoners who were the representatives of rebellion and fought for the emancipation of women. This commitment demands that thousands upon thousands of rebellious women who have had enough of the current situation step forward and ask, "for what reason have you executed our sisters?"! If demanding emancipation and rebelling against the most barbaric regime of our time is a "crime", therefore all of us women are "criminals", because all of us demand emancipation and want to rebel against outmoded, backward and barbaric regimes such as the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Today women and revolutionary militants, particularly the youth, not only value the message of life and death of these thousands of political prisoners, but they are also committed to the realisation of this slogan. Along this path, we cannot forget the massacre of the political prisoners nor forgive those who are responsible for such a crime.

The new generation of fighters can become the flag bearers of the anger and hatred of the people against the Islamic Republic regime, and like the martyrs of the 1980's, will accept nothing less than the revolutionary overthrow of the entire anti-women Islamic Republic regime of Iran.

8 March Women's Organisation (Iran-Afghanistan)

September 2015

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