The Honorable Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran,
Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei,
After greetings and my respects,
I congratulate you in advance on the arrival of Nowruz and ask the Great God to make the coming year a significant and decisive one for you and the oppressed people of Iran.
On the threshold of this auspicious occasion, I ask you:
1) Just as Your Excellency is with your dear wife, children, and grandchildren at the time of the New Year, please issue an order for the innocent political and ideological prisoners, especially mothers and fathers, and particularly mothers with nursing and young children, to be released from prison during these days of greenery, freshness, and joy, so they may join their loved ones.
It is better that this benevolent act is carried out as soon as possible, so that in the week remaining until the New Year, the effects of torture from solitary confinement and interrogation may somewhat be removed from their spirit and psyche.
It would be very joyous and proud if these oppressed and innocent people could, instead of remaining in the filthy, cramped, and dark cells of the Revolutionary Guards and the Ministry of Intelligence, be at their own homes, arms around their beloved children and dear ones when the New Year prayer is recited.
2) One of the good actions you annually perform at the turn of the year is to sincerely talk with the dear people by reading Nowruz messages. In these messages, you speak of the past year with all its troubles and the coming year with all its challenges, inviting people to patience and perseverance. This is one of the valuable traditions that have been customary since the time of the Imam (may he rest in peace).
Since I have known Your Excellency, perhaps there has rarely been a time when you have given a speech or a message without mentioning the threat of the enemy. Usually, in all your speeches, you repeatedly remind and emphasize that all our misfortunes are due to the infiltration and plotting of enemies.
My suggestion is that since during the holiday season, people’s nature becomes gentle and kind, Your Excellency, in line with keeping pace and harmony with spring, exceptionally avoid using the word “enemy” in your Nowruz messages and postpone your rightful reminders about the plots and infiltration of internal and external enemies to after these blessed days.
Of course, this does not mean that the Iranian people will forget their real enemy during these days and neglect him. I myself am among the people and see that people always remind one another of the enemy’s threat.
Most Iranians believe their main enemy is the Great Satan and constantly seek refuge in God from his evil, raising prayers and supplications to His presence to save them from the malice and deceit of this treacherous and hypocritical enemy.
3) To date, it has been twenty-seven years that Your Excellency, based on your personal preference—which we are all unaware of—names the years. In the Constitution, I searched and found no legal justification for this action of yours, nor did I find any article or clause in ordinary laws that deems naming the years necessary or considers it a leadership duty.
Nevertheless, there are many managers who compete with each other to quickly find out the name you have given to the new year, to immediately prepare banners featuring Your Excellency’s blessed image in dimensions of several meters, write the name you have designated for the new year on them, and install them on large scaffolds in the best advertising points inside cities and highways.
Considering the costly seminars I have witnessed up close and the continuous advertisements on radio and television and all associated expenses in all departments and organizations related to this topic, it can be said that the naming of years by you annually imposes billions of tomans of costs on the public treasury, which is not compatible with your slogan of an economy of resistance and your other slogans.
If we assume there is some benefit in this action, which there is not, the harm I see in it far outweighs any benefit.
Besides the material harms of this action of yours, there is also a major moral harm, which is that it fosters an atmosphere of flattery and a culture of hypocrisy among managers, and this is a condemnable and undesirable matter. Therefore, Your Excellency, in my opinion, is not religiously, morally, or legally allowed to carry out this action.
I wish you a good and decisive year.
Mohammad Mahdavifar
Deminer and Diver of the Sacred Defense
23rd Esfand 1395 [March 13, 2017]