The Iranian government held rallies on Wednesday to commemorate the 47th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, in an obvious effort to demonstrate strength after massive protests threatened to topple the oppressive government last month.
Controversy erupted when U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres allegedly wrote a letter to the president of Iran to congratulate him for the revolution that created the murderous regime in Tehran.
Russia’s state-run Tass news service reported the events in Tehran included speeches by President Masoud Pezeshkian and other top officials. The pro-regime demonstrators assembled in Tehran were brimming with hatred for the United States and Israel.
“For 47 years, the West has tried to destroy Iran and bring it to its knees, but that will never happen thanks to the resilience of our people!” one demonstrator told Tass.
“Many Iranians are carrying banners and posters depicting Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, caricatures of U.S. President Donald Trump, the son of the former Iranian Shah Reza Pahlavi, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,” Tass reported.
The junior Reza Pahlavi, now 65 years old, was an outspoken supporter of last month’s protests, and some Iranians – both inside the country and living overseas – feel he should become Iran’s chief executive after the hoped-for overthrow of the theocracy.
Expressions of nostalgia for the Shah’s rule are a common way for Iranian dissidents to express their contempt for the Islamist government. The regime, conversely, encourages its supporters to demonstrate their hatred of the Pahlavi dynasty.
According to the Associated Press (AP), when the regime kicked off its anniversary celebration on Tuesday night with fireworks and chants of “Death to America!”, many Tehran residents could be heard shouting “Death to the dictator!” – meaning Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – from their windows in response.
In his address to the crowd, President Pezeshkian praised the hefty turnout as a signal to the world that his regime survived the latest uprising.
“The world today must see that the people of Iran have come to the scene in their millions across the country to safeguard their Revolution, obey the leadership of the system, and defend their values and their proud land,” he said, without mentioning the thousands of innocent civilians his government murdered in the streets last month to “safeguard the revolution.”
Pezeshkian repeated the official propaganda line that the protests were entirely the work of foreign powers seeking to undermine the Iranian theocracy.
“The U.S. and Europe made every effort to bring the Revolution to its knees, imposed an eight-year war on Iran and backed Saddam in an attempt to partition and occupy the country, but failed in the face of the bravery and sacrifice of Iranian youth,” he claimed.
Pezeshkian took care to praise the officially approved “martyrs” of the regime, including Mohammad Bagheri and Hossein Salami (killed when Israel launched strikes against Iran’s illegal nuclear missile program) and Qassem Soleimani (killed while orchestrating terrorist attacks against Americans in Iraq by a U.S. airstrike in January 2020).
Despite the generally belligerent tone of the revolutionary anniversary event, Pezeshkian added a note of contrition for the poor policy decisions that brought the Iranian economy to its knees and launched last month’s protests, and he said Iran is still willing to pursue diplomacy with the Western world over its supposedly nonexistent nuclear program.
Guterres drew controversy on Wednesday by allegedly “congratulating” Iran on its bloody 1979 revolution, according to admittedly unreliable Iranian state media.
Iran’s IRNA claimed Guterres sent a letter of congratulations to Pezeshkian, urging more global cooperation while failing to criticize last month’s savage crackdown on dissent.
Watchdog group U.N. Watch demanded Guterres clear up the controversy by releasing the unaltered and unredacted text of his letter to Pezeshkian, declaring “the world deserves transparency on this matter.”
U.N. Watch also demanded Guterres rescind the invitation to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to address the opening of the annual U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC) meeting on February 23. If Guterres does not comply, U.N. Watch threatened to petition Swiss authorities to arrest Araghchi for crimes against humanity when he arrives in Geneva.
“It is an outrage that the U.N. Human Rights Council would provide a platform to Abbas Araghchi, a key figure in a regime accused of mass killings, torture, executions, and systematic oppression of its own people,” said U.N. Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer.
“The Secretary-General’s reported congratulations to this same regime on its so-called ‘Islamic Revolution’ anniversary – celebrating an ideology that has led to decades of atrocities – compounds the hypocrisy,” he said.
Neuer said it was vital for Guterres to publish the full text of his congratulatory message to Iran, “so the world can see exactly what the UN Secretary-General said to a regime responsible for the killing, raping, and murdering of Iranians in the name of its revolutionary ideology.”
“The U.N. was founded to prevent horrors, not to honor those who commit them,” he said.
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