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Statement of a Group of Iranians Addressed to the Arab Nations

To the Arab nations and people:

We extend to you our warmest salutations and express our highest praise for your heroic uprising against transgression and tyranny. You rose up in the name of liberty and human dignity. You rose up to be masters of your own destiny. You rose up to establish freedom and equality; equality that is of all citizens, Muslims and non-Muslims, men and women.

We all witnessed how Arab youths valiantly sacrificed themselves and in doing so galvanized the Arab masses. No sooner the authoritarian regimes were brought down, the despoilers of the revolution appeared on the scene. In Egypt a spiritual guide of the Muslim Brotherhood and in Tunisia the head of Al-Nehza Islamic Party, used the disarray of the progressive and democratic forces to seize power. What we are witnessing today is that Islamists, under the guise of religion are usurping the liberty for which you have shed your blood. In the name of Sharia they are planning to supplant political dictatorship with religious totalitarianism.

The experience of the Iranian revolution is there for you to behold. In the context of that event you can clearly see how religious totalitarianism is far more terrifying and repressive than political authoritarianism.

In recent days, a coterie allied with the Velayat Faghih establishment whose hands are tainted with the blood of the Iranian people, have written a letter to Mohamed Morsi, The Brotherhood’s President of Egypt asking him to model his government on the Iranian system and to place the destiny of his nation in the hands of the guardians of the Islamic Sharia.

For the past thirty-four years, we democratic and freedom-loving Iranian political activists, university professors, writers, journalists, students and Iranians from all walks of life with various political outlooks have learnt a very bitter lesson from the experience of the religious tyranny in our country. For thirty-four years our people have been agonising under the ceaseless assault of the Islamic regime. They have been imprisoned, tortured, maimed and executed. Their under-age adolescents have been sent to the gallows.

For thirty-four years Iranian women have undergone the most demeaning types of insults and discrimination. For thirty-four years this murderous regime has embarked upon terrorism in every corner of the world. For thirty four years our country's economy has been devastated, our national wealth has been plundered and the pillage of our country's resources has been uppermost on the agenda of the rulers of the Islamic Republic. We exhort you to learn from our tragic experience and not to repeat our grievous mistake. We urge you not to allow swindlers under the guise of supreme guides and imams hijack your democratic revolution.

At the outset of the Iranian Revolution, many of the political forces and intellectuals acted imprudently and lackadaisically. They did not stand up against Khomeini the way they should have. They did not take the danger of combining religion and politics seriously. Khomeini took advantage of the inattentiveness and dispersion of democratic and secular forces. Inch by inch he worked his way to the position of absolute power and established a totalitarian regime in our country. At that time, the experience of the Islamic regime was unbeknown to the world. The Iranian people were not aware what an Islamic government amounted to. You on the other hand have the advantage of the hindsight of the Iranian revolution. Don't put your trust in Islamist demagogues who promise you freedom and justice. When these impostors usurp all the power, nothing will remain of freedom and justice.

After gaining sufficient power they will repress and stifle all progressive and freedom loving forces. They will enslave your nation and plunder your resources. They will subjugate and enchain your youths, your wives and your daughters. They will murder you as they murdered Chokri Belaid. The bright spot in your revolution is that you have made a stand against the domination of the Islamists. We applaud you in your resistance to these tyrannical forces and for providing your political struggle with a proper organization and structure. We praise you for your refusal to allow Islamists to monopolize power.

In this statement, our purpose is to remind you of our horrendous experience and to warn you against the establishment of an Islamic government. We want to impress upon you the fact that the retrograde forces only retreat under your steadfast resistance. If we all join hands together we can move the Middle East towards freedom and democracy. We can establish peace and tranquility in the region. Relying on our enormous resources, we can build prosperous societies where freedom of opinion and conscience are guaranteed and religion and government are separated. We applaud your courage and resolve.

Your destiny and our destiny are tied together. Your victory is our victory!

Partial List of Signatories:

Abdolreza Ansari, Cyrus Amuzegar, Mehrdad Alizadeh, Shayan Arya, Heidar-Gholi Boroumand, Malek-Taj Boroumand, Reza Bayegan, Kamran Dadkhah, Shaheen Fatemi, Farzad Farahani, Manouchehr Ghanbari, Saeed Ghasseminejad, Ms. Fariba Hachtroudi, Soorena Hashemi, Hormoz Hekmat, Ms.Khanum Iravani, Jalal Idjadi, Hossein Jafari, Alireza Kiani, Abbas Khorsandi, Parviz Mahdavi, Gohar Maleki, Mehrdad Maleki, Mehdi Mozafari, Abdolmadjid Madjidi, Hassan Mansoor, Parviz Mina, Esmail Nooriala, Yuhena Nadjdi, Masoud Noghrehkar, Ramin Parham, Foad Pashaei, Naser Pol, Fereydoun Sareshtehdari, Salman Sima, Sholeh-Shams, Mohsen Sanatipour, Hamid Tafazoli, Shirin Tabibzadeh, Fariborz, Tabibzadeh, Mehd, Vaziri, Nader Zahedi, Kambiz Zare, Farrokh Zandi, Siamak Zargham

Readers' Comments:

Bagher Ghalyai: I thank my fellow country people for this initiative to share their experience with our Arab neighbours regarding our terrible experiences with Islamic government. Like Europian intellectuales, who shared their experinces in Glorious Revolution of England, Independence War of the United States of America and the French Revolution with each other in Eighteen Centry, we the citizens of Middle East should help each other to establish a democratic society in our region by sharing our experiences. Thirty four years ago, at the time of Iranian Revolution, there were no model of Islamic government in the world for us, so we didn't take it seriously, how dangerous an Islamic government could be for democracy and social prosperity. Now after the Iranian and Taleban experiences with this type of government, our fellow Arabs should know more about the miserable outcome of the mixture of politic and religion. It is now very important moment for you, before the Islamists establish their power, to prevent the Islamist to take the power. Please ask us and let have more and more seminars together with over five millions Iranians, who left Iran after the Islamists took power in Iran to hear from the first hands, what Mullahs did with our country. We are more than pleased to share our experiences with you, in order to help to prevent another terrible government like ours in our region.

Darius Sharifi: I think this message would have had a much stronger voice, if there were more female signatures. I think the obvious missing element of our so called democracy in Iran, is the elimination of equal rights for a men and women. This is the first and most elementary requirement of any democracy.

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