Iran’s Opposition Figures Call For Three Months Of Fresh Protests

Prominent Iranian opposition figures have called for a three-month campaign of protests and strikes culminating in the murder anniversary of Mahsa Amini.

Exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi and football legend Ali Karimi published a tweet on Friday urging people to hold anti-regime protests and strikes to commemorate the killing anniversary of Mahsa Amini who was murdered by the Islamic Republic in September last year.

“Today is the birthday of the proud champion of the nation, Majidreza Rahnavard. Freedom-loving and patriotic Iranians across the world are honoring his memory. Let us turn Majidreza's birthday into the beginning of a three-month campaign and— with further planning, organization, and solidarity— prepare for protests and strikes on the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s passing,” read their message.

The twenty-three-year-old Majidreza Rahnavard was executed in December after the Iranian regime charged him with killing two members of security forces during ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ protests. All protesters who were hanged or received long prison sentences were tried without due process of law, often even without their own defense attorney.

Activists on social media criticized the execution of the 23-year-old Rahnavard as "a criminal act" by the clerical establishment to deter dissent. He was apparently a constitutional monarchist.

Several other protesters were also executed by the Iranian regime after protests erupted following the killing of 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini on September 16 in the custody of morality police enforcing strict mandatory dress code laws.

The government has used thousands of well-armed regular and irregular forces to repress the protests, using severe beating, firing shotguns that have killed and blinded hundreds of people and even military weapons.

Meanwhile, tens of Iranians gathered in front of the UK’s Foreign Office in London on Friday to mark the birth anniversary of Majidreza Rahnavard and Abolfazl Adinezadeh.

Iranian security forces killed Abolfazl Adinezadeh by firing dozens of shotgun birdshots at him at point-blank range in the city of Mashhad on October 8. He died as a result of liver and kidney damage, according to the BBC.

The security forces arrested the sister, father and uncle of Abulfazl at his grave on Friday.

In the evening of the same day, Abolfazl’s mother, and all their relatives were arrested in Faruj in North Khorasan Province.

The security and judicial authorities of the Islamic Republic forced his family to bury the body of the teenager in the cemetery of Najafabad village near Faruj. In the past months, his family was under pressure to keep silent regarding the murder of their son.

After their arrest, a number of families, whose beloved ones were killed during the protests, called for support for Adinehzadeh’s family, asking people to celebrate his birthday on Saturday.

Despite the government’s use of iron fist, it seems a new chapter of anti-regime protests would be opened across Iran on the eve of Maha Amini’s death anniversary.