Letter Mr. Kazemeini-Boroujerdi to 67th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations

Your Excellency, Secretary General of the United Nations, Ladies and Gentlemen, heads of states and nations participating in the 67th session of the General Assembly of the United Nations,

 Please accept the greetings of this humble imprisoned cleric, who writes to convey himself to you from within a prison cell which is surrounded by a cruelty and brutality called religion and faith. It is many years that the hands of the claimants of Islam have captured me and held me hostage. They have wasted my youth, my life and health, and now, as you come together for this global event, in order to inform each other of the hidden pains and concerns of each others communities, it is apt that you should focus on the ills that invade the contemporary world and the abused rights of the innocent and helpless.

I sit here, at the start of my eighth year of captivity; jailed by a religious dictatorship and charged with defending the freedom of though, speech and expression and refusing to align with tyrants who forcibly lord over Iran. I am under severe psychological and fatal physical pressures, while millions of my fellow compatriots live in the most horrific conditions, oppressed and violated, throughout Iran.

I have been honored to act as an advocate who echoes the public protests against the ruling phalanx of autocrats. Has the time not come, for your assembly to demand that these brutal totalitarians respond to how they dare to speak of Bahrain, Syria and Palestine, under the guise of sympathy, when they have plundered and stolen the wealth and national income of every Iranian, rendering them impoverished and putting them in the ultimate financial and economic crisis?

If the humanitarian authorities of other countries are truly sensitive and serious about affording people around the world, their civil rights, and they really listened and heard the cries emanating from our country, these dictators would never dare to continue their shameless violations and their blatant rampage to destroy Iran and Iranians to the alter of their despotism. This regime’s steely guards do not permit one iota of criticism and protest by the average person who is in desperate need.

The Iran that has been endowed with the greatest natural and national wealth has been fleeced and is now wanting for even a normal life. If you were really aware of the statistics of our destitute and deprived, you would not hesitate to intervene. It has been thirty five years that this so-called revolution, was established in this strip of Asia and despite all the grand vows that were made by its founder, nothing but pain, chaos, crisis and suffering has become the daily norm of our people’s lives.

I plead with all my being, from each and every one of you to focus your gaze on that which goes on inside Iran and scrutinize the actions and blatant human and civil rights violations of this regime. 

Seyyed Hossein Kazemeini-Boroujerdi

Evin Prison, Tehran, Iran

September 2013

Translated and edited by: Banafsheh zand