Washington, DC – Jamal Abdi, President of the National Iranian American Council, issued the following statement on Iran’s ongoing protests, emphasizing support for the Iranian people and warning against attempts to exploit the unrest to push for war:
“As protests continue in many parts of Iran, NIAC reiterates our solidarity with the Iranian people peacefully exercising their inalienable right to protest amid desperate economic circumstances and continuing repression from Iranian authorities. We reiterate our call on the Iranian authorities to halt all violence against protesters, to release prisoners of conscience and to observe their international human rights obligations.
“We must also be absolutely clear: the Iranian people’s legitimate grievances must not be exploited by external actors intent on bringing more war and chaos to Iran. Violence only begets more violence, and democracy cannot be instilled at the barrel of a gun.
“As we’ve seen in Venezuela over the past weekend, there are many reasons to doubt that external intervention would have the best interests of the Iranian people at heart. In Venezuela, legitimate grievances were exploited to further geopolitical and material gains, with the prospect of more war on the horizon.
“The U.S. has played a key role in the impoverishment of Iranians over the past few decades, and we continue to stridently oppose broad sanctions that have crushed the Iranian economy and driven millions out of the middle class, a key driver in successful democratic transitions.
“If the U.S. truly values the wellbeing of Iranians, it should abstain from military threats and instead move to ease pressure that has long stifled the aspirations and well-being of the Iranian people while entrenching the country’s political and economic elite.”
###