Iranian political prisoner Abolfazl Ghadiyani has issued an open letter from prison, saying the Iranian Revolution failed because “absolute monarchy was reproduced as the absolute leadership of the Faqih (the expert cleric).
In a letter marking the anniversary of the 1979 Revolution, Ghadiyani writes: “The Revolution triumphed 37 years ago, but Iran’s freedom-seeking people…[did not attain victory]; the monarchy was toppled, but democracy was not established, and the people got only a taste of liberty.”
In the past three years, Ghadiyani has published several letters criticizing Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei for which he was recently transferred to the Ghezel Hessar Prison.
Ghadiyani is one of Iran’s veteran political activists. He was a political prisoner in the time of Iran’s last monarch and was released when the 1979 Revolution toppled the old regime.
Ghadiyani’s letter on the Kaleme website goes on to add: “Our Revolution did not reach its objective, and we failed because we revolted against an absolute monarch and being ruled by a single individual, and now those very structures are reproduced and established in the absolute leadership of the Faqih”
He insists that the people have to resist against the totalitarian regime by “demanding free elections at every opportunity.”
Ghadiyani accuses Iran’s Supreme Leader of “a coup against the people’s vote in 2009 and tainting his hands in the innocent blood of peaceful protesters.” He adds that now the leader has lost all legitimacy and regards any talk of free elections as a “seditious move and a betrayal of the authoritarian religious regime.”
He concludes: “In view of the current leader of the Islamic Republic and the physical elimination of its opponents, the responsibility for anything that might happen to me must rest with the highest authority of the regime.”
Last month a number of political prisoners in Evin Prison issued a letter protesting the transfer of Abolfazl Ghadiyani to Ghezel Hessar Prison, which they regarded as a punitive measure for writing critical letters addressed to the Supreme Leader.
Ghadiyani is 68 years old and suffering cardiovascular complications.
