Assembly of Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK) announced in a written statement its solidarity with the nationwide strikes and emphasized the need for the regime to retreat to prevent a bloody uprising.

PJAK’s statement:

“Forty years of military rule in Iran.
As of October 2018, the conditions in Iran differs many aspects from previous years. After forty years of the Islamic Republic ruling, this government is suffering from the worst situation both internally and externally. Simultaneously, the social awareness and the demands of people have reached a high maturity level. This phenomenon was also observed in the latest nationwide strikes.

Over the past four decades, the peoples of Iran have been deprived of any rights to protest or express a demand that is unpleasant to the regime. People’s slightest outrage towards the forced law has been responded with the greatest punishment by the government. Thus after all these years, the inefficient and corrupt nature and the true face of government is revealed. The denial of peoples right through legal channels and the arrival of fundamentalist-reformist government streams has reached a deadlock. The people are running out of patience as this was seen in January of 2018 with a series of nationwide protests.

Surely, such massive popular protests should be considered a turning point in contemporary Iranian history which had an irreversible consequence for society and the government. The protests were the most widespread and radical uprisings since the beginning of current regime’s ruling. The protests are the result of increasing denial of people’s right for living freely and the concentration of wealth and power among chosen few. The popular and legitimate protest was held with the sporadic participating of people but it was spread throughout the nations of Iran in a short time and the voice of freedom-seeking people caught the worlds attention. However, the power and wealth seeking tyrant regime suppressed the protest in the most severe and inhuman ways; at the expense of tens of lives and torturing thousands of citizens. Still many of the freedom-seeking men and women are detained in the hands of the oppressive regime, leaving thousands of Iranian families grieving.

Despite its shortcomings and problems, even the constitution of Iran recognizes the right of peaceful protest for Iranian citizens. Yet throughout the Islamic Republic’s history, the regime has denied the right to self-express and protest from the Iranian people and deliberately prevented the implementation of constitutional clauses. The ruling government is aware of their lack of legitimacy in society and among people of Iran. Therefore, it attempted to resolve the legitimacy crisis by holding demonstrative and fraudulent elections or by creating crisis outside its borders. In this approach, the regime pretends to take a hostile attitude towards the United States and Israel via the policy of “Anti-world” in order to frighten people and create unity under the pretext of an external enemy threat. Whereas in practice, Iran has not taken any measures in fighting against Israel or the United States. This policy is known as the politics of enemy-making, an imitation of Hitler, to unify the people to consolidate the society. It prepares the people for obedience towards the government and allows the brutal suppression of popular opposition with the stigma of being affiliated with “foreign enemies”.
The people of Iran, despite all the government pressure and with all the dangers of seeking liberation, had a series of nationwide protests. As result, they have revealed the regimes true face and the government’s internal weaknesses to the world. In addition, the international powers such as USA and Russia tried to get more concessions from the Iranian government in different ways. At the same time, with increasing pressure from the people and foreign powers, the internal crisis, inefficiency, and internal corruption of the system have become more obvious. The economic crisis has also reached its peak, which the people of Iran and marginalized groups of society were its main victims.

Under maximum pressure from the government on society and the heavily guarded atmosphere, one can label the situation as“forty years of military rule in Iran”. The people have not surrendered to the regime and have not abandoned their demands. The latest manifestation of the people’s legitimate demands and the increasing awareness of the peoples of Iran can be seen in the nationwide strikes. The best examples of recent strikes were the multi-staged general strike launched by truck drivers and the general strike across Kurdistan in protestation against the execution of Kurdish youths, or the recent teacher’s strikes. These protests defeated all repressive policies of the regime and under current circumstances, protests have become the most efficient means for the society against the regime.

Taking the current situation, the government’s direction for the last forty years and the people’s struggle into consideration one can conclude that the Islamic Republic of Iran lacks serious intentions to reform or change the situation, however, the people are on a completely different path and even have demands that do not fit within the current constitutional framework. Therefore, the government has no other choice other than retreating from the past policy of threat and repression but to accept the demands of the people, improve relations with the world, and recognize the right to protest for the peoples and minority groups of the society in Iran. Moreover, any insistence on previous wrong policies and ignoring the society can lead to the same fate of dictators of the Arab world. One that can bring a tremendous and irreparable cost to Iran’s future.”

18.1.2019