Letter from 9 Female Prisoners: "It is Obvious We Will Not Participate in the Elections"

Nine political prisoners who refer to themselves as "leftist women imprisoned in Evin prison" announced in a statement: "It is obvious that we will not participate in the presidential elections." These political prisoners stated on Tuesday, July 2, that the two candidates in this election are "symbols of the decay of this fascist regime," and wrote: "Such elections are a desperate attempt to save a desperate government that has lost its legitimacy." With the presidential elections in Iran moving to a second round, Massoud Pezeshkian and Saeed Jalili, the two candidates who received the most votes in the election on Friday, will compete against each other. The significant decrease in participation in this election has become one of the hottest topics on Persian-language social media, with supporters of both boycotting and participating analyzing it from their perspectives. In their statement, these nine political prisoners in Evin continued: "This election, like any other election in capitalist systems, means that people are only given the right to choose when they select one of the oppressors to continue the established reactionary order for a few more years." They concluded by reminding: "Liberation is not possible through ballot boxes but only through our own efforts and through conscious struggle against all forms of exploitation, oppression, and discrimination." The signatories of this statement include Anisha Asadollahi, Reyhaneh Ansarinezha, Hasti Amiri, Golrokh Iraei, Nahid Taghavi, Nahid Khodajoo, Nasrin Khazri Javadi, Farah Nasaji, and Maryam Yahyavi. Previously, in addition to Narges Mohammadi, a imprisoned human rights activist and Nobel laureate, and Gohar Eshghi, a grieving mother, Mojgan Ilanlou, a documentary filmmaker supporting the "Women, Life, Freedom" protests, and Sepideh Rashno, a jailed translator, other well-known figures and groups such as the Association of Families of Victims of the November 2019 Protests, the Mothers of Mourning in Kurdistan, and 55 prominent political activists from inside and outside Iran had also called for a boycott of the elections. The previous election that led to Ebrahim Raisi's victory was referred to as the least attended election, but now a new record has been set for the people's indifference to elections in the Islamic Republic. This is while Ali Khamenei has repeatedly emphasized the importance of public participation.