What happened to all those slick and dreamy promises?

Mr. Kazemeini-Boroujerdi’s message on Mid Sha’ban  
It is the day of Mid-Sha’ban, the birthday of the savior of the deprived. Man, in any era, has wanted peacemakers who would reform and repair the codes that advance freedom. The global community has also  protested against totalitarianism and savagery of evil despots and paid a heavy price. Their voices were not heard and their rights were not restored. A world without justice and honor, would be a world of violence and cruelty. More than anything, human beings need to breathe the fresh air of freedom, away from harm and abuse. Unfortunately this is necessity has become unobtainable and has our deprived people living under constant fear, in despair and wanting.

Anyone who took up the struggle to defend the innocent and disadvantaged, or entered the political fray and democratic struggle, they were brutally crushed by the overlords who continue to fill their violent prisons, and where those activists are left to rot. In order to achieve their own aims, the tyrants then pad their own lives and make those in their own sphere affluent while riding on the backs of the defenseless and terrorized.

Truly, who will come to the aid of the disadvantaged of this earth? What happened to the product of populist movements and revolutions that are to liberate? The calamitous history of the proud people of Iran speaks of successive malaise and hopelessness in achieving reforms, to access to the ideological, social and belief independence.

Thirty five years ago, in the name of faith, dressed in religious garb, they stepped into the circle of the leadership of this sacred land and all of their slick and dreamy promises were nothing more than a deception of the battered people, against whom they discriminated, whom they suffocated and now, they themselves admit that 90% of the plundered populace lives under the poverty line. 

What happened to the national wealth? Where did our country’s assets go? What has become of our young people’s circumstances? Those mythical plans to turn the deserts slipped their minds; and the revitalization of agriculture is in shambles. All the factories, large and small have shut down. The correct statistics on unemployment,  addiction, divorce, lack of security, bankruptcy, suicide has now become a regular part of the news! And still their leader presents this country as some kind of ‘heaven’, and vehemently dismisses all statistic and proof as aspersion and anti-regime activity.

The traffic mess, the unbelievable air pollution and the unpaid wages of the works have not even been addressed and yet the plain clothes agents, goon squads and revolutionary guard forces continue to threaten, while the Friday prayer leader Imams spread their vicious lies via the regime-run media. The crisis mongers expect us to endure more and more of their secret and public executions.

Seyyed Hossein Kazemeini-Boroujerdi

Evin Prison, Tehran, Iran

June 2014 
Translated and edited by: Banafsheh Zand