Statement by Group of Female Political Prisoners on Necessity of Boycotting Parliamentary Elections
A number of Iranian women serving time in prison on political charges have issued a statement calling for a boycott of parliamentary elections. According to them, the Islamic Republic has always been an authoritarian system that attempts to present itself as democratic through “elections.”
In a statement signed by 12 female activists imprisoned in Iranian prisons, it is stated that in the Islamic Republic, “through the establishment and preservation of absolute religious monarchy (Velayat-e Faqih), the sovereignty and right of choice of the Iranian people have been usurped and stolen.”
They state that the “Islamic Consultative Assembly” today is “not a democratic institution but an element that is entirely anti-people and completely serves the ruling authority.”
They say that the Iranian people through successive uprisings and revolts have “declared their true and irreversible votes loudly in the streets from December 2017 to the bloody uprising of November 2019 and thereafter with self-sacrifice.”
The imprisoned women, emphasizing that “this system and its elections are based solely on the blood of millions of innocent youth,” conclude: “We must leave their elections to themselves and remain in the real field of people’s elections. Whoever goes to the ballot boxes will have their fingerprint recorded on the trigger of the weapon being fired at revolutionary youth and will bear the seal of approval for the ruling system and its crimes.”
This statement has been signed by 12 imprisoned women, including: Yasmin Aryani, Neda Eshtiaghi, Atena Daemi, Sepideh Farhan, and others.
One-Quarter Participation in Elections
In recent days, various political groups and circles have called on people to boycott elections and not participate in a process they believe contradicts genuine democracy.
Despite repeated emphasis by leaders of the Islamic Republic on the necessity of widespread public participation in upcoming elections, one week before the eleventh parliamentary elections of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, the Institute for Social Studies and Research of Tehran University released the results of a poll.
According to this poll conducted in the first half of the previous month, more than three-quarters of Tehran citizens said they will not participate in the upcoming elections.
Only slightly more than 24 percent of eligible voters said they would participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections.
Source: DW
