Faezeh Hashemi Tells Reformists: Do Not Remain Silent on the Recent Affronts

Outspoken politicial activist Faezeh Hashemi has called on Iran’s reformists not to remain silent in the face of a litany of injustices in Iran, as, she said, they had been in the past.

In a video clip shared with IranWire, Hashemi, the daughter of former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, tells the camera: “Since the last election we have seen a great many problems, crises, protests, sit-ins. The differences that have emerged even between the fundamentalists, the growing influence of Israel, the relative failure of policies at home and abroad, have weakened the system of governance.”

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The absence of efficient managers in government, she said, and a dearth of creative thinking to resolve Iran’s problems, had prompted the state to reassert its “authority” in other ways: “First by arrested Messrs. Rasoulov, Panahi, Tajzadeh, grieving mothers and many others. There have been intense confrontations with women over hijab, each of which made the government look weaker. Ms. Rashnu and other people were arrested.”

Hashemi also mentioned dog owners, the Baha’i community and female singers as being among the targets of recent assaults by the regime, as well as targets overseas: “The attack on Salman Rushdie,” she said, “and the plot to assassinate John Bolton, may be indirectly or directly related to us. From a religious, moral and social point of view, such actions are wrong.

“Unfortunately the reformists have mostly been silent… due to conservatism, lack of belief, self-centeredness, or male theorizing about women, which some reformists are unfortunately not immune to. I am addressing the reformists: on each of these matters there is a legal, political, moral and social basis for speaking out. If we want to be sought in the next elections, if we want to be influential, dragging out the name ‘reformist’ is useless. We must oppose, speak, declare a position, criticize wherever necessary.”