Iran political prisoners declare solidarity with protesters

NCRI - A group of prominent Iranian political prisoners have declared their support for ongoing anti-regime protests by Iran’s teachers, nurses and laborers.

Eighteen political prisoners signed the statement released on Tuesday.

The statement reads: “We political prisoners declare our support for the planned rally by teachers and laborers on July 22 and the protest by nurses on July 28. We hope that the teachers, laborers and nurses in unity and solidarity with the entire Iranian nation can ever more quickly regain their stolen rights from the usurper authorities through their freedom-seeking democratic protests.”

The signatories included:

1 – Hassan Fath-Ali Ashtiani
2 – Farid Azmoudeh
3 – Reza Akbari Monfared
4 – Amir Amirgholi
5 – Ayatollah Kazemeini Boroujerdi
6 – Mohammad Jarahi
7 – Iraj Hatami
8 – Khaled Hardani
9 – Shahin Zoqi-Tabar
10 – Shahrokh Zamani
11 – Saeid Shirzad
12 – Alireza Farahani
13 – Abolqassem Fouladvand
14 – Abdolreza Qanbari
15 – Ali Moezi
16 – Pirouz Mansouri
17 – Assadollah Hadi
18 –Mesyaq Yazdan-Nejad

Iranian teachers, nurses and laborers have held numerous anti-regime protests demanding their rights in recent months.

Last week, Iranian nurses staged anti-regime protests in front of hospitals in the capital and other major cities over their inadequate wages. Hundreds of nurses and medical professionals took part in the rallies in Tehran.

The nurses had previously been told by officials that protests would be met with expulsions, and that the authorities could employ other workers to fill the place of expelled nurses.

Another large protest by Iranian nurses was held in February outside the regime’s Parliament.

For more than a year, nurses have organized several similar protests in Tehran and other cities in Iran.

Due to difficult working conditions, many nurses who previously were working in the provinces have been forced to leave their hometowns and migrate to Tehran and other major cities in search of work. In Iran, public hospitals are currently facing a serious problem of nursing shortage.

Iran’s teachers have also been very active in protests demanding greater rights.

In recent months, tens of thousands of teachers in some 70 cities from 27 provinces have held gatherings against oppression and injustice by the clerical regime in Iran.

Iranian opposition leader Mrs. Maryam Rajavi said in the annual Iran Freedom rally in Paris: “Amid an unrelenting uproar over the Iranian regime's ominous nuclear program and three inhuman wars in the region, we have come to say that those who are speaking on behalf of Iran are in fact the enemies of Iran and all Iranians. The people of Iran neither want nuclear weapons, nor meddling in Iraq, Syria or Yemen, nor despotism, torture and shackles. The people of Iran are the tens of millions of enraged teachers, students, nurses and workers who demand freedom, democracy, jobs and livelihood.”

“They say: First, the velayat-e faqih regime has reached the end of the line. Second, the only way to end the violations of human rights in Iran, the nuclear impasse, the crises in the region, and the confrontation with ISIS and terrorism, is to topple the Caliph of regression and terrorism in Iran.”