A Bit of Good News

On the same day that the U.S. ended the supposed ceasefire with Iran and once again resumed its horrific military aggression endangering all life in Iran, we joined with the family and friends of political prisoner Mehran Raouf in welcoming his release from Evin Prison, though he must wear an electronic ankle monitor restricting movement and travel.

Mehran, a dual citizen of Britain and Iran, a teacher, activist, and English translator, was unjustly arrested in October 2020, along with prominent activist Nahid Taghavi and 4 others, all now released. On July 8, @burnthecage posted that “Raouf, who is almost 70, has been deprived of legal rights…despite physical problems. His attorney and family have expressed hope that he will be provided with complete parole…” During his six years imprisonment in Evin, he was denied the right to “medical furloughs, conditional release, and adequate access to specialized healthcare services.”¹

Prisoners’ Resistance Persists Amid U.S.-Israeli War and Islamic Republic (IRI) Repression

On July 1, hundreds of prisoners staged a collective protest, risking their own lives to defend the life of a political prisoner. Iran Human Rights Society reported that in Vakilabad Prison in the northern city of Mashhad, prison authorities had severely beaten one of the political prisoners on the charge of “disrespecting the agents.” In reaction to this outrage, about 350 prisoners started a protest hunger strike by refusing to eat the lunch meal. The prisoners described this action as protesting “the violence against their fellow inmate and the horrendous conditions in the ‘quarantine’ ward.” London-based Iran Wire reported on July 9 that two of these brave hunger strikers lost contact with family since the strike started and disappeared from the ward, raising urgent concerns for their health. 

Mashhad is a site of massive pomp and staged unity over the burial, on July 9, of Iran’s former “Supreme Leader” Ali Khamenei, assassinated in his Tehran family compound on the first day of U.S.-Israeli bombing. The huge funeral crowds are supposed to show that now the Iranian population supports him and the regime. In reality, it only shows that many oppose the U.S.-Israel war on Iran, and that a regime in power can organize a big crowd for itself. So what? The “crowd size” cannot erase the heavy repression in Mashhad and other cities, especially in recent years, nor erase the objective reality of mass discontent and brutal repression. Maybe a more accurate read would benefit from polling the thousands of political prisoners, including the 32 independent attorneys recently arrested, summoned, prosecuted or imprisoned.

As overall executions continue to surge—850 (!) so far in the first half of 2026, according to iranrights.org—the “No to Execution Tuesdays” prison hunger strike persisted into its 128th week on July 7, now across 57 prisons, with last week’s addition of Kerman Prison in southeast Iran. This organized and determined struggle to protest state murder, including that of many young people and political prisoners, must be supported by all those who yearn for justice in our world. Imagine the difficulties to conduct and continue such protest actions in just one prison for over two years, much less to persevere for it to spread even while caught between the  “two blades of a scissor”—as an ex-prisoner described the “on again, off again” U.S. and Israeli bombings coupled with IRI mass arrests, imprisonment and executions. These prisoners’ courageous protests act as a clarion call to everyone in the world to resist injustice no matter the odds. 

The prisoners show a keen sense of the many-sided dangers they face from phony friends and real foes. On June 24, the weekly hunger strike campaign addressed the U.S./Iran Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for a supposed ceasefire and negotiations: “after months of war that took a huge toll on the Iranian people, the Memo of Understanding between the fascist theocrat government [IRI] and the U.S. doesn’t even mention human rights or the appalling repression and executions occurring within Iran. This clearly demonstrates that neither power has any intention of changing this situation, and the people must rely on themselves for change, and not on any foreign force or power.” (emphasis ours)

Around 30 political prisoners jailed off of the massive January 2026 protests currently held in Saveh Central Prison went on a collective hunger strike. According to Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, “the coordinated hunger strike began on Friday, June 26, 2026, across multiple wards of Saveh Central Prison, in response to summary judgement court proceedings, fabricated cases of war-related security violations, and the lengthy prison sentences and additional court-imposed punishments. The judiciary handed down the sentences based on forced confessions obtained under torture while disregarding the defendants' statements in their own defense.” Saveh Prison is about 70 miles southwest of Iran’s capital city, Tehran.

Opposite Sides of Same Stupidity: U.S. vs. IRI War on Objective Reality and the Truth 

As for the IEC, we continue to stand firmly against the repression of the Islamic Republic against its own population and in support of the resistance of the political prisoners/dissidents. We also continue to firmly stand against the U.S. and its war against Iran. Given this, we are compelled to speak up against those who are siding with one or the other of these two oppressive forces—the ever louder megaphones of the U.S. imperialists and those of the IRI fundamentalists—as they both act at the expense of lives of political prisoners and the people of Iran overall (as the prisoners’ statement above says). For clarity, opposition to Islamic fundamentalism is NOT Islamophobia or anti-Muslim.

Reality Check #1: Mai Sato, United Nations special rapporteur on Iran, in an interview on June 27, said the U.S.-Iran MOU’s “failure to address human rights made it ‘incomplete’” and she expressed “hope that the final agreement could include clauses that address the human rights situation in the country.” This appeal to the U.S., joined by other UN “experts,” spreads deadly illusions that the U.S. is a force for good “to help the Iranian people” as fascist Trump insanely claims. As such, it is objectively an assault on truth because it serves to cover up the reality of the U.S.’s long history and current reality full of genocides, slavery, and coups/wars for empire, including its 1953 CIA coup in Iran. Besides the UN, other forces promoting this lie about a benevolent Uncle Sam are the pro-U.S./Israel monarchist Iranians and the so-called “Islamic Marxists” of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK). Both of them are closely tied to various factions of fascists in the U.S. ruling classes and work to whitewash the crimes of the U.S. by only pointing to the (lesser) crimes of the IRI, hoping to facilitate a pro-U.S. “regime change” with one of them as the new U.S. puppets in Iran. 

Reality Check #2: On the other side of the fascist assault on truth and reality are all the liberals/ “left”/woke crowd praising Iran’s theocratic regime as a force for good against the U.S. and Israel, playing on people’s justified hatred of these two global monsters. These forces include Louis Farrakan of the Nation of Islam, Drop Site News, George Galloway (former British politician now living in Moscow), IRI related media, and many in the ossified U.S. “left.” Choosing the “lesser evil” seems more reasonable or even progressive but it is in fact a way of promoting the dead end of NO real alternative to imperialism by hiding the truth that Iran’s Islamic regime is NOT a liberatory society. 

There are real world consequences to the magical (vs. reality-based) thinking in the whitewashing of the actual oppressive nature of Iran’s regime. Despite whatever intentions, it objectively throws the political prisoners and dissidents under the bus in a callous and careless erasure of their struggle such as the 128 continuous weeks of prisoner hunger strikes, or the horrific executions. We owe it to those people in Iran who are bravely standing up to repression—such as women fighting extreme patriarchy—to stand with them and not against them by praising the regime. For example, look at the sidebar on the new music video that includes many of the oppressed/ethnic minorities of Iran. Will such soulful but inchoate cries for liberation be dismissed because of harmful, ignorant formulas like “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”?

What both the fascists/imperialists and these supposedly “leftist opposing voices” have in common is their denial of objective reality such as the complicated and contradictory situation in the Middle East (and world), harmfully opting for superficial truths or a made up “narrative” that is convenient/popular/comfortable “truth.” This is myopic poison denying the reality such as women’s oppression and liberation (e.g., the 2022-2023 uprising after the regime’s morality police murdered Mahsa Amini). It denies the socio-economic foundation of Iran’s exploitative society as a thoroughly integrated part of the world imperialist economy, based on the dog-eat-dog drive for profit off wage labor.

The IRI and its followers attribute the brave protests in Iran to CIA/U.S. “dupes”, whereas the CIA claims anyone favoring Iran is an IRI dupe. Both sides of this stupidity use the method that insists the truth is whatever we say it is or want it to be, objective reality be damned. All this is part of the huge philosophical struggle in our world over science and the evidence-based process for what’s true based on a scientific method. The avoidance of this struggle does great harm to Iran’s political prisoners whose lives are in the balance, as well as to what future they and we will have. This fight to confront the stakes—and positive possibilities—is yet another reason to stand with those who are standing up against injustices in Iran and everywhere. 

One important way to do that is to contribute to the work of this campaign (IEC), that has documented Iran’s political prisoners’ heroism against injustice for over five years, and is heard behind those prison walls. We call on you to stand with them now. Donate to the ongoing efforts by sending checks or money orders to: International Emergency Campaign, 18601 N. Hwy 1 #212, Fort Bragg, CA 96437. 

From IEC Emergency Appeal published in March 2021:

All of Iran's political prisoners must be unconditionally and immediately released.

The governments of the U.S. and Iran act from their national interests. And, in this instance, we the people of the U.S. and Iran, along with the people of the world, have OUR shared interests, as part of getting to a better world: to unite to defend the political prisoners of Iran. In the U.S., we have a special responsibility to unite very broadly against this vile repression by the IRI, and to actively oppose any war moves by the U.S. government that would bring even more unbearable suffering to the people of Iran.

We demand of the Islamic Republic of Iran: FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS NOW! We say to the U.S. government: NO THREATS OR WAR MOVES AGAINST IRAN! LIFT SANCTIONS!