Homage to Leon Trotsky 80 years after his assassination at the hands of Stalinism
Speech by Shiva Mahbobi, spokesperson of the organization “Campaign for the Freedom for the Political Prisoners in Iran”
“We believe in revolution and we believe and we know that one day we will overthrow this dictatorship as well and to achieve live worthy of a human being.
But the key is the solidarity. Every one of us fights in different countries, the key we are together in this fight. We all together can make a difference.”
Hi everyone. Thank you for having me here. My name is Shiva Mahbobi. I am the spokesperson for Campaign for the Freedom for the Political Prisoners in Iran. I’m also a women’s right activist.
We live in a world where millions are living in poverty. Not because there’s no money in the world, quite the opposite. There’s enough wealth in the world so that every single person can live a happy, standard life. But that is not happening, why? Because in capitalism making profit is the priority and looking after people is not profitable. So that is no happening now.
The crisis of COVID-19 is another example that shows that people’s lives do not matter in the system. Government in different countries have different means and resources to help people. People die in every country because of the COVID crisis, not because there’s no money in the world, to spend on hospitals or medications or to prevent the virus. It’s because the governments do not spend money on people, so people die every day.
The pensioners who worked all their lives, now they’re left in a care home and they die, because there’s no money to spend on them. Well, that’s not true. There’s money, but the system, the governments, do not spend their money on the citizens.
So while the exploitation creates war and all this creates more, at the same time people who fight against the system. People who fight for freedom and a better world, they get suppressed, they get assassinated. They are taken to prison, they get torture, they get executed.
Did that really work? Did that push people away from fighting for freedom and a better world? I don’t think so. You are in Latin America and Latin America has a long history of fighting for freedom and a better life.
Take an example of myself. I’m an example of many many other women and men in Iran who have been fighting for freedom. I was only 10 when the revolution of 1979 started. I saw people being killed, kidnapped, tortured, beaten on. My own friend at a very very young age was arrested, raped and executed. Many families lost their lives.
I’m sure you guys in Latin America and many other country, listening to this you relate to what I say.
So, I’ve witnessed many things. They even arrested me at the age of 16, and I spent more than 3 and a half years in prison. But did that stop me? It didn’t. It actually made me more angry. It actually made stronger to fight for a better world; to fight against this brutality.
So, right now, in Iran, if I take to Iran after 41 years, after killing and executing thousands of people, by the Islamic regime in Iran, the fight has not stopped. Right now that I’m speaking with you, more than 40 factories and workplaces are going on strike.
So, although those brutalities happened, they assassinated many people outside of Iran, even now they arrest activists. They put them in a horrible situation in prison, but the fight is going on and we have not stopped.
One example of that is one of the very well known labour leader activist Jafar Azimzadeh, who is now in prison. Unfortunately, he contracted the virus, the COVID 19 and instead of giving him medication and transfer him to a hospital, they have transferred him to a prison with even a worse condition.
What they do is to put activists in that situation, very well known activists, so they die of COVID or different kind of illnesses and then the Islamic regime claims that they died due to natural causes.
So, all these years in Iran we’ve been fighting against the Islamic regime. We had the revolution to get rid of the dictatorship to have a better life; a life that every human being deserves to have. But that didn’t happen because the Islamic regime hijacked our revolution.
But we have continued. We believe in revolution and we believe and we know that one day we will overthrow this dictatorship as well and to achieve live worthy of a human being.
But the key is the solidarity. Every one of us fights in different countries, the key we are together in this fight. We all together can make a difference.
Thank you.
Iranian political prisoners sentended to death
Protest of the public servants of Bushehr
Health worekrs of Meshhad
Saeed Tamjidi, Mohammad Rajabi
and Amirhossein Moradi, sentenced to death in Iran
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