Press release from Hands Off the People of Iran

PO Box 54631, London N16 8YE, T: 07950 416 922 (Mark Fischer)

W: http://www.hopoi.org/, E: office@hopoi.info

Immediate release

Parsa Kermanian and Alireza Heydari imprisoned for 12 months for “making propaganda against the Islamic system”

On Tuesday May 20, Parsa Kermanian (Kermanjian) and Alireza Heydari – students at the Islamic Azad University of Kermanshah in Iran – were tried and convicted in camera of “making propaganda against the Islamic system”. Bahnoar – the presiding judge in this so-called “Islamic Revolution’s court of Kermanshah” convicted both students to 12 months imprisonment in Kermanshah’s Dizelabad prison, with 5 months of that sentence suspended for 5 years.

Both students were required to appear at court without a properly prepared summons and without sufficient warning to allow them to properly prepare their defence. They were convicted and sentenced in a short session, without having the right to attorneys for the defence or the scrutiny of potential impartial observers such as journalists. Their real crime was – along with other student activists – to use the December 5 2007 (16th of Azar), the National Students’ Day in Iran, to protest against the ongoing imprisonment of student activists, to raise slogans against the second-class status of women under the Islamic regime, to oppose war, to condemn the disastrous, government-produced economic crisis and the reactionary political stranglehold the theocracy continues to maintain on Iranian society.

Hands Off the People of Iran condemns these imprisonments and demands the unconditional release of Parsa Kermanian (Kermanjian), Alireza Heydari and all political prisoners incarcerated by this barbaric regime in Tehran. We stand in solidarity with the grassroots workers’, students’ and women’s movements that are confronting the theocracy in daily battles – big and small – for democracy, freedom and fundamental social change. Democracy in Iran – like every other country on the planet – can only be won from below. This is the fundamental principle that Hopi bases itself on and this is why we unconditional condemn all threats against Iran coming out of Washington and its allies, including the UK.

Imperialism is the main enemy of the world’s peoples. Regime change ‘Bush-style’ from above only produces societal disintegration and anarchy, as the seemly never-ending nightmare of the peoples of Iraq starkly illustrates. Indeed, the regime in Tehran actually uses the bellicose noises coming out of the US to attempt to silence critical voices in its own country, to portray dissenters as conscious or unconscious ‘fifth columnists’.

That is we say it is correct to raise our voices in protest against the mullahs’ oppression, but that the best service we can render our comrades in Iran as they struggle to shake the parasitic theocracy from their backs is to defeat the war plans of ‘our’ imperialists.

• Immediate and unconditional freedom for Parsa Kermanian (Kermanjian), Alireza Heydari and all Iranian political prisoners!
• No war on Iran! For all imperialist troops out of the Middle East now!
• Support all working class and progressive struggles in Iran against poverty and repression!

Notes for journalists

1. In early December 2007, dozens of leftwing Iranian students were arrested for taking part in the National Student Day demonstration in Iran. This demonstration has a long history – it can be traced back to the 1950s, when three Iranian students were killed for protesting against the visit of the (then) US vice president, Richard Nixon.
2. In 2007, however, students raised anti-war and anti-regime slogans on these official protests.
3. According to even conservative estimates, the demonstrations attracted over 800 activists in Tehran and other cities – a large number given the highly oppressive nature of the regime.
4. One student – Ebrahim Latif Allahi (a law student in Payam Noor university in Sanandi), was killed in the local prison. His family were curtly informed that he has “committed suicide” and that his body had been “already buried”. Ebrahim’s family are adamant that he was tortured to death.