Leading Iranian Opposition Figures To Hold A Forum In Washington DC
Eight key Iranian diaspora opposition figures will hold a meeting with the media at Georgetown University Friday titled: The Future of Iran’s Democracy Movement.
Eight key Iranian diaspora opposition figures will hold a meeting with the media at Georgetown University Friday titled: The Future of Iran’s Democracy Movement.
Since the start of popular antigovernment protests in Iran last September the issue of forming an opposition leadership council has been a hot topic of discussion among Iranians. This is the first time key figures outside the country join together in one venue to express their views.
Exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi, Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi and Canada-based Dr. Hamed Esmaeilion, President of the Association of Families of Flight PS 752 downed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in 2020, as well as US-based author, journalist and women’s rights activist Masih Alinejad, actresses and activists Nazanin Boniadi and Golshifteh Farahani, former captain of Iran’s national soccer team Ali Karimi and Secretary General of Komala Iranian Kurdish party Abdullah Mohtadi are four women and four men of the group.
The February 10 event at Georgetown’s Institute for Women, Peace and Security (GIWPS) will be moderated by Karim Sajjadpour, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment and adjunct professor at Georgetown University.
“For the first time since the uprisings began, eight of the Iranian democracy movement’s prominent diaspora leaders will share the stage to talk about the continued viability of the movement, their common vision for Iran’s future, and how democratic change in Iran can change the world,” an announcement by GIWPS said.
The event can become a turning point in shaping a united leadership abroad to represent the democracy movement in Iran, where activists have no chance of publicly defending it. Thousands of protesters are still in prison and dozens face the death sentence.
The event coincides with the 44th anniversary of the establishment of the Islamic Republic, which this year is marked amid political uncertainty as many people in Iran support or sympathize with the protest movement and are caught in perhaps the most difficult economic crisis since the 1979 revolution.
The clerical-military regime finds itself in international isolation, facing multiple domestic crises and beginning to show signs of strain.
Last week, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the leader of the 2009 Green Movement who has been under house arrest since 2011, issued a strong statement calling for a referendum to decide the future form a democratic Iran. Mousavi who was a top leader of reformists in Iran said that there is no hope the ruling regime can be reformed.
Iran Human Rights group in a tweet immediately on Sunday announced that the amnesty claim is a “deceitful” step by Khamenei, demanding that all protesters should be freed “unconditionally”, and instead those responsible for repression should be tried in courts.
Protesters were exercising their right to peacefully demonstrate and arresting them had no legal bases, Iran Human Rights said.
Government media reported Sunday that Khamenei had “agreed” with a proposal by the country’s Judiciary to free those who were “misled” and took part in protests.
It is still not clear how many or which prisoners will be pardoned and whose sentences will be reduced. While thousands of young and teenage protesters were arrested in street demonstrations, hundreds of political activists, journalists and writers or artists have also been detained.
Khamenei’s move came days before the 44th anniversary of the Islamic Republic, as a move to rescue the regime’s image amid a grim economic crisis and mass public rejection of the political system he presides over.
The hardliner judiciary has attached so many pre-conditions for any prisoner pardon, that no one knows how many will be freed, while some state media claimed “tens of thousands” will be released.
Some of the conditions for being pardoned were mentioned in the announcement, including no record of spying for a foreign country, no connection with foreign intelligence services, not facing a charge of murder and no accusation of destroying public property. The regime’s security forces and courts, meanwhile, have held thousands of detainees exactly based on these sorts of charges.
A lawyer defending several detained protesters tweeted that Khamenei’s move was nothing more than “imposing the fake version of reality by the regime,” which attempts to switch the guilt from itself to the victims.
Almost all court proceedings have been held behind closed doors, after many detainees were tortured to confess to trumped-up charges. Also, in most cases defendants were not allowed to have their lawyers in the court or even have access to case files.
A former political prisoner Hossein Qashqai tweeted, “It is us who should issue pardons, not you, who carry the blood of our dearest and best children on your hands. We will never forget and forgive.”
Prison interrogators often demand that detainees to sign self-incriminating apologies and pledge not to engage in antigovernment activities. Shahriar Shams, a former prisoner, quoted one his friends who is still behind bars that if the authorities free them unconditionally, it would be fine, but if they demand any letter of remorse “we will not give them anything. We should be the ones to pardon them.”
A Dutch member of the European Parliament tweeted Monday that “Freedom shouldn’t depend on a dictator’s whims. This is hypocrisy and we won’t be fooled.”
European countries have exhibited tough reactions, compared to the past, to Islamic Republic’s bloody suppression and the hanging of four protesters after sham trials. The European Parliament last month passed a resolution demanding Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to be listed as a terrorist organization by the European Union.
Some Iranian conservative supporters of Khamenei have been surprised by the international backlash and admit that the regime is now more isolated. But Khamenei seems to be determined to make no real concession. In one of his recent speeches he said, “In the old days when wounds did not heal, they cauterized them.”