NCRI Staff
NCRI – Morteza Shams is a courageous student who rose up against the tyranny of the mullahs in Iran before being arrested and tortured for his beliefs. Active in the student community to denounce the fundamentalist regime, young Morteza took part in the 2009 popular uprising in Iran, where he was led to measure the impact of the PMOI/MEK fight for change. Having recently left his country, he participated on December 16 at an international conference in Paris titled, “The explosive situation of Iran, the regime of the mullahs surrounded by crises”. Here is the text of his poignant speech:
Greetings to all of you,
My name is Morteza and I was a senior majoring in Engineering, before I was expelled from the University in Iran.
At the outset, I want to salute Iran’s youths, who, despite being incarcerated in Ali Khamenei’s torture chambers, or being suppressed and assaulted, are chanting the songs of battle and freedom.
Exactly a week ago today, on the anniversary of National Students Day, the barbaric clerical regime sentenced Zamaneh Zivieh, a senior majoring in law, to 50 lashes because she had called for freedom.
As Atena Daemi, said: “While it is true that who were killed or executed, will never be alive again, but not remembering them, paying attention to their plight, and being the voice of each and every one of them will help justice, humanity prevail. It will be recorded in the annals of history and be heartening to all those who have been oppressed one way or the other for many years.”
My acquaintance with the PMOI/MEK goes back to the 2009 uprising. It was a rebellion by a tormented generation, which had suffered from suppression and oppression. It was the suppressed pain of many years of repression. Like a thirsty man in the desert, I was searching for a remedy. One which was not a dream, but a blood-soaked reality. A reality in which the regime saw its own demise from the very beginning, and for this reason, it was desperately trying to pour dirt on it. But, why fear those with hacksaw in hand, because our truth is the tall tree of liberation, with solid footing in the ground and with branches reaching high in the sky, with a new fruit every day.
It was in the midst of that uprising that I read the book by Massoud Rajavi, entitled “The Strategy for Uprising and Overthrow.” That is how I came to know the PMOI and their ideals. After searching for them, I finally made contact with the PMOI.
I was arrested at a rendezvous. Under interrogation, I realized that the regime has trained individuals who deliberately and consciously are hell-bent on destroying love and humanity. I said to myself, we have many examples of being steadfast. So can I. And I pledged to persevere.
I am reminded of my heroic sister Reyhaneh Jabberi, who said, “We must persevere to create a value. Even if you die, persevere and create a new value. And she persevered and created a value, and the skies prayed for her.”
I finally succeeded in fooling the interrogators and got released. To continue the path I had chosen, I decided to leave the country. I knew that if I get arrested at the border, hell would await me. But I said to myself that my life is not more precious than Sattar Beheshti’s. The interrogators were telling him that he should shut his mouth, otherwise he would be killed and no one would know what happened to him.
So be it, until you are damned by the curse of hell, by the curse of mournful mothers dressed in black, grieving over the most beautiful children of sun and wind, and they have not yet stopped praying.
For this reason, I chose not to break my pledge and took the risk. I crossed the border in secret, while being shot at by the Revolutionary Guards. It was not to save my life, but it was to keep the pledge I had made, to stand until the last moment of my life, to elevate the struggle I had begun, becoming a full-time activist, ready to give everything in the path of resistance. I came abroad, not for escaping the cost, but for paying even more in the path of liberating my people and my nation, Iran.
While it is true that I am abroad now, but I am as determined as ever to use such examples as young martyrs: Rahman Manani, Amir Nazari, Hanif Emami, Siavosh Nezam al Molki, Saba Haftbaradaran and Mahdieh Madadzaeh, as my beacons. Yes, I am determined to give everything I have for the love of the ideal of freedom.
I am the rebellious Saeed against the suppression of students. I am fighting in another bastion for freedom and am confident that together with everyone else, shoulder to shoulder with others, and in lock-step with roaring stream of the people and the combatants of the Army of Liberation, we will achieve freedom, however heavy the price for that may be.
Hail to all the enlightened Iranian students, those who were martyred, those are in chains, and those, who are fighting for freedom in different fronts.