To the Honorable Supreme Leader
His Excellency Ayatollah Khamenei, may his glory remain
Greetings and respect,
As I speak to you now, some of the children of this land are imprisoned in various prisons of the country for crimes, including participating in illegal gatherings.
Dear Leader; we have repeatedly seen on our own media that in various countries, and recently in the United States and South Korea, gatherings are held against the highest officials of the country. People, in small and large groups, stage sit-ins or marches on the issues they protest. Do you think that the gatherings of these individuals are legal or illegal?
From the perspective of the Iranian government, any protest gathering anywhere in the country, regardless of which part of the government it challenges, is considered illegal due to lack of a permit.
In this scenario, your children in the Ministry of Intelligence, the IRGC Intelligence, the Basij Resistance Force, and the law enforcement agencies, as soon as they become aware of a planned protest gathering somewhere in the country, immediately deploy their visible and invisible forces to the scene, regardless of the subject or objective of the protest, and spare no effort to disrupt the gathering.
Esteemed Leader; I ask you, with these measures in place, how are the people supposed to express their dissent?
Doesn’t Article 27 of the Constitution state that forming assemblies and organizing demonstrations, without carrying weapons, as long as they do not disrupt Islamic principles, is free?
I ask you, these people who want to gather, and all of them are Muslims, do they assemble to curse the principles of Islam?
Is it the goal of the people every time they want to form a protest, to set something on fire?
Why does mere talk of a gathering cause some people to tremble with fear?
It is said that a permit is required for a gathering.
For example, I want to gather a group in one place to form a protest and shout at you with all my might during this gathering. Do you say I should come to you in advance for a permit?
Will you give me a permit so that I, along with a thousand others, can shout at you?
Clearly, you won’t. So why do you tell us to come and get a permit?
In the past thirty-seven years, to which group or gathering have you granted a permit so that they can come and shout at you?
Do you think that in the United States, if someone goes to the front of the White House today and shouts against the highest American official, do the police or CIA officials ask them whether they had a permit for shouting or if they shouted without one?
And if that individual hasn’t taken a permit for shouting, do they take him to prison?
Neither I nor you have ever been to the United States, but let’s think or go ask, what do those people, whom you describe as the worst on earth, do in such situations?
Esteemed Leader; the words I write to you in these letters are not my discoveries, meaning that I know these and people do not. No, Dear Leader; people know them just as I do, and perhaps even more and better than I do, but fear has taken hold of their hearts, so much so that they avoid saying these things even in secret, not just publicly.
Esteemed Leader; is it right for people to fear you and your officials?
Did we go to the front, give blood, and make martyrs with the aim of making people afraid of you?
May God make our deeds blessed and our fate good.
Mohammad Mahdavifar
Deminer and Diver of the Sacred Defense
14th of Azar, 1395 [December 4, 2016]