Participate in 22 Bahman March

Rooz Online English/

A number of democracy and human rights activists have released a statement denouncing capital punishment in Iran and calling on people to participate in the 22 Bahman march and protest the execution of prisoners. 22 Bahman coincides with February 11 and is the day in 1979 when the clerics led by ayatollah Khomeini toppled the Iranian monarchy.

The text of this statement reads as follows:
“The Islamic Republic regime has employed naked violence to suppress the Iranian Green Movement and prosecutes Iranian youth in sham, secret trials and sentences them to death. Two young individuals were executed, 9 others are awaiting the confirmation of their execution sentences, and several others are scheduled to be prosecuted for Moharebeh [armed struggle against God] this week. These inhuman judgments contradict not only the International Declaration of Human Rights and the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Right, to which the Iranian government is a signatory, but also the procedural guidelines of the Islamic penal code currently in place in Iran. It is clear that the use of such naked violence is to instill terror in people’s hearts and silence their democracy-seeking movement. The signatories to this statement condemn the execution of the youth, the passing of death sentences for political and ideological prisoners, and the holding of secret trials and announce their opposition to the death penalty, calling on all civil society and human rights organizations, and all responsible members of the international community to strongly condemn such unjust and inhumane acts.

If the Iranian government believes that it can silence the Iranian people’s democracy-seeking voice through terror and fear, it must look to the fate of other dictators and see how they eventually surrendered to the nations’ rightful demands. We, the signatories to this statement, invite the wise and courageous people of Iran to demonstrate to the world their demands for justice and liberty with their peaceful and calm presence on the anniversary of the 1979 revolution, once again showing to the dictators that the right-seeking movement of enlightened Iranians will never be decapitated with the blade of violence and terror, and the execution of innocent Iranian youth and the injustice and violence of the coup agents will not leave the slightest impact on the national determination of Iranians to realize the dreams of democracy, human rights, and respect for the human dignity of all Iranian citizens, regardless of their gender, ideology and ethnicity.”

Here is the list of names of signatories to the statement:
1. Ervand Abrahamian. 2. Dariush Ashouri. 3. Mastoureh Ahmadzadeh. 4. Taghi Asadi. 5. Faramarz Aslani. 6. Mohammad Azami. 7. Ali Afshari. 8. Babak Amir-Khosravi. 9. Asieh Amini. 10. Mehran Barai. 11. Monireh Baradaran. 12. Reza Barahani. 13. Mohammad Borgheie. 14. Mehrzad Boroujerdi. 15. Ali Banu-Azizi. 16. Sohrab Behdad. 17. Asef Bayat. 18. Misagh Parsa. 19. Shahrnoush Parsipour. 20. Ali Parsan. 21. Foad Taban. 22. Nayyereh Tohidi. 23. Mehdi Jami. 24. Mihan Jazani. 25. Ramin Jahanbeglou. 26. Ali-Asghar Haj Seyyed Javadi. 27. Fatemeh Haghighatjou. 28. Mehdi Khanbaba-Tehrani. 29. Behrouz Khaligh. 30. Vedour Khosroshahi. 31. Kamran Delkhah. 32. Hamid Dabashi. 33. Mahin-Dokht Daghighi. 34. Mostafa Rokhseffat. 35. Hossein Zahedi. 36. Mina Zand. 37. Arash Sobhani. 38. Akbar Sardouzami. 39. Faraj Sarekouhi. 40. Ebrahim Soltani. 41. Bijan Shahmoradi. 42. Masoumeh Shafeie. 43. Shahla Salehpour. 44. Farhad Soufi. 45. Hossein Ziaie. 46. Shahla Talebi. 47. Reza Allamehzadeh. 48. Kazem Alamdari. 49. Masih Alinejad. 50. Reza Fani Yazdi. 51. Mehdi Fatapour. 52. Reza Farahani. 53. Farhad Rajan. 54. Hadi Ghaemi. 55. Firouzeh Ghoreishi. 56. Keyan Katouzian. 57. Naser Kakhsaz. 58. Kazem Kardovani. 59. Ali Keshtgar. 60. Abdi Kalantari. 61. Hossein Kamali. 62. Nik-Ahang Kousar. 63. Akbar Ganji. 64. Effat Mahbaz. 65. Majid Mohammadi. 66. Reza Moeeni. 67. Farshad Malek-Ahmadi. 68. Mojtaba Mahdavi. 69. Mansour Moadel. 70. Ali Mirsepasi. 71. Roozbeh Mir-Ebrahimi. 72. Abbas Milani. 73. Mohsen Namjou. 74. Ebrahim Nabavi. 75. Shahin Najafi. 76. Farhad Namani. 77. Shirin Neshat. 78. Mohammad Reza Nikfar. 79. Farzin Vahdat. 80. Nader Hashemi. 81. Hassan Yousefi Ashkevari. 82. Behzad Yaghmaeian.