Let me start with a personal memory. On December 13, 2007, during a gathering of freedom-seeking and equality-seeking students, I was arrested near Tehran University. After being transferred to the Ministry of Intelligence’s follow-up office and sitting blindfolded in front of a wall for several hours, it was time for my preliminary interrogation. I went to the interrogation room and sat with my back to the interrogator, blindfolded. The interrogator (or as they called themselves, the expert) asked why I had participated in an illegal gathering. I raised my head and referred to Article 27 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, which states: “Formation of gatherings and processions, without carrying weapons, is free as long as it is not against the principles of Islam.” I knew that a student gathering, no matter what it was, was not against the principles of Islam. Before I could finish my sentence, the interrogator forcefully pushed my head forward and whispered

The legal regime has become a victim of the real regime.

Four decades have passed since the anti-monarchy revolution of Bahman 57 and the establishment of the Islamic Republic system. A revolution that in its early years became the owner of a constitution and laws, and the process seemed to be leading towards rule of law. But the problem was elsewhere. In post-revolutionary Iran and during the era of the Islamic Republic (like previous times when Iran became the owner of a legal regime, except for a few very short periods), the legal regime spoke, but what ultimately happened on the ground was the real regime. The same real regime that I tasted its back in Azar 86, and said that the law is not that principle stated in the text of the book, which is him. He is the owner of power, force, wealth, and certainly justifications that can be seen in an article dated 10 Khordad 1389 on the Alef website. Where in response to the post-election protests of the 88 presidential election that

This regime has sacrificed the legal regime multiple times for its own interests, meaning the interests of the system, and in reality, with the translator of the system to a class, a group, a spectrum of thought, an individual, and dozens of others. This is not a story of today or yesterday. The story began from the early days of post-revolution. Groups were disrupting each other’s gatherings, but the aftermath of these disruptions, in a situation where the legal regime had not yet completely taken over the real regime and Iran was still in the post-revolutionary space, was not in the formal governing procedures that could be sought in groups that were supported by the newly established rulers, and considered themselves followers of their line and their martyrs. These circumstances, along with the political situation of the time, the contradiction between the prime minister and the leader, and then the president and the leader, and the lack of establishment of the new system and conflicts in the surroundings and peripheries,

June 20, 1981, the first turning point.

On June 20, 1981, the result of a process that gradually progressed. It began with conflicts and disrupting the gatherings of those who were identified today as being associated with the revolution, but from the beginning, the decision was not to give them any government positions, not to involve them in the legal structure, and essentially to eliminate them during the establishment of the system. This led to the disruption of the plans of the then-president on February 4, 1981. And then, in the spring of 1981, it became more intense. Several opposition gatherings were cancelled or attacked. However, until then, the opposition did not react and did not defend themselves with weapons, whether cold or hot, despite being attacked with cold and hot weapons. But on June 30, there was a different decision. It was planned to hold a rally and protest against everything that was happening – including the removal of the first president in the history of Iran. And the decision was for everyone

On Monday, June 20, 1981, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the then speaker of the parliament, writes in his memoirs about the casualties and injuries of that day and announces the execution of 8 people for Tuesday, July 1. (3) The newspapers are filled with images of those who were executed and families have to go to identify the bodies. And it was our people at the beginning of one of the coldest chapters in Iran’s history.

The second turning point, July 18th, is endless!

The war ended and the founding leader gave his place to a new leader. The 70s are heading towards another decade. The month of Khordad 76 and the second of Khordad are approaching. It is planned for a civil society to be established (although its design, after a while, retreats from a civil society to a Medina society). It is planned for there to be a season of law and nothing else. The spring of media and civil institutions after the revolution, and specifically after the heavy blow of the 30th of Khordad 1360. But this spring turns into autumn very soon and once again the real regime, with the tools of the legal regime, destroys all the tangible achievements of post-Khordad 76. The train of time arrives at the station of Tir 1378. Salam newspaper, a newspaper whose editor-in-chief is one of the main supporters of the new president, and its newspaper is also the base of critics

A peaceful gathering of students was attacked by agents who were self-proclaimed and later found out not to be self-motivated, but rather commanded. In those days, there was much talk of the many killed and injured, and eventually at least three names, “Ezzat Ebrahimnejad,” “Saeed Zeinali,” and “Farshad Ali Zadeh,” were mentioned as missing and casualties of that attack in Tehran. Ezzat Ebrahimnejad was killed by a direct bullet. Saeed Zeinali was taken from his home and his family was never told what had happened to him. In fact, he joined the ranks of the missing after the revolution, and the last image seen of Farshad Ali Zadeh, or at least attributed to her, is an image of the questioning gaze of this female student from Alzahra University, seen through the iron bars of a cage. A questioning gaze that still asks and seeks an

Many were arrested behind this peaceful gathering in Tehran, and what the so-called self-appointed forces and actually attributed to security institutions threw on the necks of students. The security apparatus and national television identified several people as guilty and closed the case. It was never publicly revealed who turned a simple student gathering protesting the closure of a newspaper into a tragedy that would haunt the students and leave a scar on their hearts forever.

But perhaps the newspaper headlines were clear enough at the time. The Khordad newspaper had titled: “The University of Tehran was stained with blood.”

It remained that the issue did not end in Tehran. On July 20, 1999, the University of Tabriz also joined the students of the University of Tehran and behind this joining, the same ones who had clashed with the students of the University of Tehran, also did so with the students of the University of Tabriz. The students were suppressed, arrested, and suffered.

In this incident, the leader of the regime in Tehran cried during a meeting and said that if they also tore up his picture, do not have anything to do with them. And then on the same day, the Ansar Hezbollah went to Tehran University with clubs and wanted to take revenge on the students and protesters in the streets for the heart of their leader, and if it weren’t for one of them trying to calm this anger, another tragedy may have occurred.

After the bloody tragedy of the University massacre and the heavy censorship of the media and imprisonment of journalists in 1379, even with the re-election of Mohammad Khatami as president, there was no longer any power for the second government of Khordad and its reforms to confront the blows of the real regime. The reformist government came to an end and with the suspicious victory of Ahmadinejad in 1384, step by step, the minimum achievements of the reform era were also destroyed. The country approached the 1388 elections. It seemed that the political helmsman had changed…

In Khordad 1388, the beginning of a new journey.

The 2009 presidential election in June was another opportunity for the Iranian civil society to exercise their right to protest and gather for their demands. Despite numerous evidence that has been discussed and detailed elsewhere, widespread fraud took place in the election and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner. Supporters of the opposing candidates took to the streets to exercise their right to protest, according to the existing laws of the Islamic Republic and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and to denounce the election fraud. People who had the right to stay on the streets for hours before the election, to gather and protest, and to form human chains from Enghelab Square to the railway, now came to the streets to ask where their vote had gone. After being called “dirt and dust” by Ahmadinejad, they had requested a legal permit for a march on June 15, but the Ministry of Interior did not approve it. However, people still came to the streets and according to various reports, more

With the continuation of protests and their interpretation by high authorities of the regime as “street riots” and the people being called agitators, the leader of the regime officially announced his position on June 19th in Tehran’s Friday prayers, supporting a candidate and even standing against his 50-year-old comrade. The next day, on June 20th, 2009, 28 years after June 30th, 1981, Tehran and some cities of the country witnessed clashes between protesters and military forces. In Tehran, many protesters were arrested and injured, and some lost their lives. Neda Agha-Soltan was the martyr of this day, and the video of her death had a profound impact on the world.

July 9, 2009 was another step and these gatherings and protests continued. But despite the explicit right to assembly and protest in the constitution, the demonstrators were brutally suppressed, which was unprecedented after the June 2009 protests.

The point is that even the solution of gathering and protesting and presenting demands in official government protests did not work. November 4, 2009 and also February 11 of the same year were prominent examples of this event. It seems that even government gatherings and protests were forbidden for those who wanted to voice their protest and pursue their vote, and were only allowed for the supporters of the current ruling regime. This means that a government protest was forbidden for some and considered permissible for others, depending on their view of the ruling regime. This phenomenon has been unprecedented in the years after the revolution and even until today.

The turning point of these protests can also be considered the 5th and 6th of Dey, 1388 (December 26th and 27th, 2009), the days of Tasua and Ashura. Especially on Ashura, when a face-to-face confrontation between the protesters and supporters of the regime took place. According to reports and discussions that took place in a session of the Islamic Consultative Assembly after this day, on this particular day, the control of Tehran had almost slipped from the hands of the security forces of the regime, and if they had decided to do something else, the situation of the real and legal system of Iran could have been different from that date onwards. However, on Ashura of 1388 (December 27th, 2009), at least in Tehran, one week after the death of Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, who in a way was the spiritual leader of the protesters, many were killed,

And this process has continued. In recent years, protests by civil activists, teachers, workers, and other segments of Iranian society have been suppressed by security forces under the pretext of acting against national security. This process has been ongoing since the early years of the establishment of the regime until today. A path that has been followed since the disruption of a gathering where the President of the nation speaks (March 4, 1981) and the heavy suppression of the June 20th movement until today, and it continues.

Do we have the crime of participating in a march without permission?

Question! Do we have the right to participate in unauthorized demonstrations, where people are arrested, interrogated, tortured, and convicted, especially in the mentioned critical points, throughout these years? Genus Sharif Razi, a first-degree attorney in December 2009, in an interview with the Human Rights Reporters Committee regarding the case of Zia Nabavi, said: “In our Islamic Penal Code, there is no crime of participating in unauthorized demonstrations.”

This prosecutor continues in the same conversation, saying: “In Islamic penal law, participating in unauthorized gatherings is not considered a crime, and according to Article 2 of the Islamic Penal Code, which is considered a fundamental principle of criminal law and is based on the principle of legality of crime and punishment, any act or omission for which a punishment is prescribed by law is considered a crime. When participating in a demonstration without permission is not considered a crime, according to the principle of interpretation in favor of the accused, which is common in criminal law and means that if there is any doubt, we must interpret it in favor of the accused, our opinion is that simply being present in an unauthorized gathering is not considered a crime.”

The point here is that many of the detainees in gatherings are accused under Article 610 of the Islamic Penal Code, which raises the issue of social gatherings and conspiracy. This is while the subject of this article only has a linguistic similarity to the issue of gatherings and is fundamentally about something else. This article states: “Whenever two or more people gather and conspire to commit crimes against domestic or foreign security or provide the means to commit them, if they are not labeled as enemies, they will be sentenced to two to five years in prison.” In fact, these gatherings and those gatherings are only similar in their current form and nothing more, and simply participating in a gathering, even if it is illegal (unless accompanied by another act that is considered a crime in the law), is not a crime. However, many of the detainees in gatherings are accused under this article and are tried and convicted by linking them to participation in an “illegal gathering”. The writer himself was accused under this article in his

The legal regime in Iran has become a victim of the real regime. In fact, it is not the rulers who follow the law and make it the basis, but rather the law that must be in line with the rulers’ desires. Whenever they want, it should be enforced and whenever they want, it should be silent so that the lords can play their own tune and fulfill their own desires.

The Iranian people have come a long way since the Constitutional Revolution and the 40 years since the February 1979 Revolution, but they are still struggling with the same issues of lack of law and disregard for the rights of the people. Even today, those who gather are allowed to be supporters of the government, but if they are critics, they are suppressed and oppressed. Nowadays, even those who gather for economic demands such as the victims of bankrupt financial and credit institutions, are not shown mercy, especially if they become the subject of media attention, in an era where media has infiltrated even our mobile phones. In the age of social media and instant news, the right to gather in Iran is still suppressed and the voices of independent gatherers are censored. This is Iran in the second decade of the 21st century.

Notes:

• “Leaders of Sedition and Article 27 of the Constitution”, Part A, 10 Khordad 1389.

• Request, Mohammad, My memories of the protests on June 20th, Bell, 28th of Khordad month 1391.

• According to Hashemi Rafsanjani, BBC Persian, June 6th 2011.