BEHIND THE IRAN HEADLINES Series, July 19, 2024, Alireza Jafarzadeh, NCRI-US Deputy Director
Eighty Nobel Laureates have issued a joint letter to world leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, expressing deep concern over the deteriorating state of human rights in Iran and calling for immediate action to support the Iranian people’s struggle for democracy and freedom.
The Nobel Laureates highlight the Iranian regime’s ruthless suppression of its citizens, including ethnic and religious minorities, and its alarming record as the world’s leading per capita executioner, with at least 864 people executed in 2023. They emphasize that during the 2022 uprising, the Iranian people unequivocally rejected any form of dictatorship and demanded a democratic republic.
The letter states that the Iranian regime is fueling regional instability and exporting terrorism through its proxies, particularly since the attacks on October 7, 2023. This, they argue, is a tactic to divert attention from the regime’s internal crackdown on dissent and democracy activists. It calls for the global community to blacklist the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist entity, citing the IRGC’s role in internal repression and external violence.
The Nobel Laureates join over 4,000 parliamentarians from 41 countries and 125 former world leaders who have supported NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi’s Ten-Point Plan for a democratic and modern Iran. Mrs. Rajavi’s vision advocates for universal voting rights, free elections, a market economy, the separation of religion and state, gender, religious, and ethnic equality, a peaceful foreign policy, and a non-nuclear republic of Iran.
The Nobel Laureates affirm the inherent right of the Iranian people, especially the youth, to strive for democracy and freedom, insisting that the international community must unequivocally acknowledge this fundamental entitlement.
The joint letter echoes the loud and clear message of the three-day Free Iran World Summit 2024, which stressed that any practical and meaningful policy toward Tehran must depend on the Iranian people as actual agents of democratic change.