A Celebration on Blood: Religious Minority Representatives Present at Jamkaran Amidst Suppression and Massacre

Representatives and leaders of Iran’s religious minorities participated in the government’s Sha’ban 15th celebration at Jamkaran Mosque less than a month after one of the Islamic Republic’s bloodiest crackdowns.

While Iran remains in shock and mourning from one of the government’s bloodiest crackdowns, with remarkably devastating casualties and injuries in contemporary history, images and reports have emerged showing representatives of religious minority communities attending a government-sponsored religious celebration—a ceremony that is not only disconnected from the suffering of ordinary Iranians, but stands in unprecedented and questionable stark contradiction to it.

According to numerous reports from human rights organizations and independent media, popular protests in Iran that began in the final three months of 1404 have been violently suppressed, with death tolls in this wave of crackdowns estimated by some at over 30,000 people, while the Islamic Republic government has officially announced a figure of approximately 3,000.

These heavy casualties come as many independent sources and human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch and the United Nations, have warned of continued widespread human rights violations and a new wave of executions, mass arrests, torture, and suppression of protests.

In this atmosphere saturated with blood and grief, the holding of a grand religious “Sha’ban 15th” celebration at Jamkaran Mosque with the attendance of religious minority representatives has sparked a wave of criticism, anger, and despair among activists, observers, and the Christian, Jewish, Zoroastrian, and other religious minority communities themselves. This celebration took place while no satisfactory answers have been provided to the families of tens of thousands of the dead and wounded, nor has the government offered genuine accountability for recent events.

Criticisms have not only focused on the timing of this ceremony, but on the very nature and implicit messages of such figures’ presence at a government event; a question repeatedly raised in social circles and independent media is: “How can those who should represent religious minorities and protect their rights and dignity participate in a ceremony whose legitimacy is questionable in light of the blood of thousands of Iranian citizens?”

The attendance of these religious representatives, particularly the representative of Christians, at the government celebration comes at a time when “Alireza Panahian,” spokesman for Ayatollah Khamenei’s office, called Christianity a “corrupt religion” in a speech last week, triggering severe reactions from Christian representatives in parliament.

Nevertheless, the Islamic Republic government continues to instrumentally use the presence and participation of minorities in official events and elections to ostensibly demonstrate that it has no problem with minorities. However, historical experience and multiple reports show that at other times, these same minorities have faced severe suppression and harsh sentences have been issued against them, and this contradictory behavior raises serious questions about the government’s good intentions and moral responsibility and that of minority representatives.

Moreover, criticisms have gone beyond this issue and have pointed to the role of these representatives in legitimizing government policies and seemingly turning a blind eye to recent catastrophes in exchange for official recognition from government institutions.

Even Iran’s own civil society, including Christians and Jews, have been among the victims of suppression, and the prominent presence of religious minority representatives at a government gathering raises this question: Are these individuals truly independent, or are they bound by the very structures that ignore the blood of the people? Does their representation truly mean “defending the rights, dignity, and security of their community” and thus open the door to participation in government projects? The answer of many analysts and critics is clearly no.

This bitter event once again exposed Iran’s fresh wounds and reminded us that until the true voice of the people, justice, and accountability are realized at the governmental level, any official presence or participation of representatives in government programs resembles more a symbol of compromise, silence, and inaction than a sign of genuine unity and support for the rights of religious minorities and all Iranian people.