Written by Mansoureh Galestan, 17th May 2021
The Iranian regime will hold its sham presidential election on June 18. As the date draws closer, more Iranians join the campaign for boycotting the farce elections. Recently, a video from Iran shows several mothers of the martyrs of the November 2019 uprising bravely call for the boycott of the regime’s sham Presidential election. These brave mothers call for regime change and announce that their vote is the overthrow of the regime by the Iranian people.
Following the November 2019 protests, the regime’s forces gunned down over 1500 innocent protesters. Due to the brutality of the regime and ongoing economic and social crisis, people’s conflict with the regime has reached an irreversible point. The people target the regime in its entirety in their slogans and consider the regime’s sham election as a façade of the dictatorial regime.
The following text is the translation of the words of mothers of the November 2019 martyrs.
Our vote is regime change.
I do not forgive the unjustly spilled blood of my Mehrdad. My vote is the overthrow of this regime. People, if you vote, you are putting your finger in the blood of your compatriots who were murdered innocently during the bloody November [2019 uprising], like Mehrdad and many others.
Hello, I am the mother of martyr Milad Mohaveri. Like other mothers, along with families that share my grief, I completely agree with them. I hope a day will come when our people act logically and know that voting is a betrayal to our future generations and will not be compensated.
I am the mother of Mohammad Taeri. One of the martyrs of the bloody November 2019. One of the most despicable crimes of the Islamic Republic in the last 42 years. I could say it was a premeditated murder because they had orders to murders. All of us vote for the overthrow [of this regime]
I am the proud mother of Reza Mazloomi, who was slain in bloody November of 2019. Today it has been 18 months since they took away my son. They took part of me, my young boy. For my wrenching heart and the lost dreams of my son, I will never vote.
I am the proud mother of Navid Behboodi, one of the martyrs of the November 2019 [uprising]. It has been 18 months since they took my boy from me. I say I will not vote, do not vote people.
Hello. I am proudly the mother of Mehrdad Rezai. I have missed my son’s voice for 18 months. I have missed my son for 18 months. I neither forgive nor forget. I will not vote for the Islamic Republic. Those who vote, I hold them accountable in this world or the afterlife.
I am the proud mother of Mohsen Jafar-Panah, whose blood they spilled unjustly. I am not happy with this regime. I will not vote; you shouldn’t too. If you love us, if you care for the blood of our loved ones, do not vote.
No to tyranny, no to oppression.
I tell Iranians that I never thought as a mother to lose my boy like this. It had never crossed my mind that they kill my 19-year-old Reza on the street in my own country. I ask all people to no vote. Because a day will come, the children have the same fate, and they will mourn their children as I did.
May God prevent all parents from grieving for their children. But do not vote for God’s sake. Voting only ruins your children’s future, their lives. Please do not vote, for your children, for our kids who were killed innocently, and their blood is still fresh on the ground. It has been a year and a half, and this blood becomes fresh every day and renews our grief. For us, for the future of your youth, please do not vote.
It is wrong to test what has been already tested. We have tested [this regime] in the last 40 years. Are we going to take this test again while we know what the result is? What do we really think? If our vote was supposed to fix anything, it had happened in the last 40 years, but it did not. The past 40 years have resulted in the mass murderer of youth in November, the best treasures of this land. They killed our children, and their only crime was their presence. The greatest capital of a country is its youths? How could they kill them?
Those who go to the ballot box are complicit with those who did this to us. We will never forgive. Not just those who ordered, recorded, and carried out the order of murdering our children, but we will not forgive those who vote and participate in the elections. Their sin, and the one of those who stay silent in the face of oppression, is not less than those who killed and betrayed our children.