Text of Ahmad Mousavi’s speech
Greetings to you, dear ones, who have attended this protest rally against the execution and the expansion of the Islamic Republic’s repression. Simultaneously with our rally today in Stockholm, in many European countries, Canada, and the United States, protest actions against the repressive policies of the Islamic Republic’s regime, and in particular, protests against the death penalty, are taking place.
With each passing day, the struggle against the death penalty, both in Iran and globally, has made the necessity of this struggle more evident than ever. Currently, on a global scale, the inhumane death sentence has been abolished in 96 countries and its execution has been practically stopped in 34 other countries. However, the governments and ruling systems of 56 countries, including the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is at the top of the pyramid of oppressive governments in the world, continue to send political activists and the masses of their people to their deaths by using the death penalty. From the first day of its coming to power until today, the Islamic Republic of Iran has chosen the policy of repression and execution as the main tool for advancing its reactionary religious rule. Practicing naked repression and violence in various social spheres is part of the existential nature of the Islamic Republic, and implementing the death penalty, as the highest level of violence, has always been used as one of the effective tools of the rulers of the Islamic Republic in suppressing the masses and creating an atmosphere of fear and terror in society.
The advancement of the policy of violence and execution in society has always been directly related to the widespread protest presence of the masses of the people in society and the expansion of social movements. As we witnessed in the early years of the sixties, when the political fighting forces and the revolutionary masses of the Iranian people were actively present in the field of struggle against the Islamic Republic, the policy of violence and repression was applied to all social areas to the extent possible by the authoritarian regime ruling Iran. In those years, in the prisons of the Islamic Republic, all kinds of deadly violence, devastating torture, rape and the execution of inhuman death sentences were carried out, especially in the summer of 2018 with the massacre of political prisoners. In those years, the false claimants of freedom who have appeared today in the guise of government reformists were at the head of all executive, security and judicial powers of the Islamic Republic and were the direct executors of the repressive orders of Khomeini the Executioner in all social areas.
The intensification of repression in society and the resurgence of executions by the corrupt rulers of the Islamic Republic over the past two years also confirm this close relationship between the struggle of the masses of the Iranian people within the context of society.
After the 2009 elections, due to the effective presence of the Iranian youth and protesting masses on the streets, as well as the protesting presence of social movements, especially the increasing protests and strikes of Iranian workers, the unimaginable spread of violence in various social spheres once again became the policy of the Islamic Republic. The killings in the streets, the spread of torture and rape in prisons, especially in Kahrizak Prison, and the increase in the death penalty over the past two years, revived a part of the deadly situation imposed in the early sixties in the minds of the Iranian masses.
The publication of official and reliable statistics on the number of executions by human rights groups and international organizations in 2009 and its comparison with 2010 clearly illustrates the growing trend of executions over the past two years and its relationship to the spread of public protests against the Islamic Republic.
According to published statistics, at least 388 death sentences were carried out by the Islamic Republic in 2009. This figure increased to 650 in 2010, of which 590 were related to drug trafficking and the rest were related to socio-political activities against the Islamic Republic.
The sharp edge of violence and the inhuman execution of the death penalty has always been aimed at political prisoners, members of revolutionary and working class organizations, socio-political activists, and labor activists. With the abolition of the death penalty, members of militant and revolutionary organizations, active political forces, the Iranian working class, and in short, the masses of the Iranian people will certainly be freed from the terrible cycle of the death penalty.
Therefore, the Iranian Political Prisoners Association (in exile) calls for the abolition of the death penalty in all political and social spheres within society and considers the fight against any form of torture, acts of violence, and the death penalty to be one of its primary and fundamental duties in order to defend the human rights of the masses of the Iranian people.