The collective we spoke to for this episode began as a series of remotely-hosted blogs and communication methods among Iranian anarchists at home and abroad. By 2015 anarchists from Afghanistan had started to join and in 2018 the comrades from within Iran and Afghanistan and those living internationally founded Anarchist Union of Afghanistan and Iran. Since, more individuals and groups have joined up from around North Africa, the middle east and other places in the world and they in 2020 re-organized themselves the Federation of Anarchism Era. Last January, after the assassination by the US Trump administration of the murderous Quds leader Soleymani we spoke with members of the then-named AUAI about the network, living under 19 years of US war and 40 years of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
This week, Aryanam, a member of the Federation of Anarchism Era, shares collective answers to some of our questions and a few personal insights to ongoing events in Iran and Afghanistan. He talks about the recent election of Ebrahim Raisi to the Iranian presidency, a man who helped to oversee the death committees that executed thousands of political prisoners, as well what the election of Biden in the US and the two governments agreements on nuclear development and the sanctions the international community is imposing on Iran. You’ll hear about the course of covid in Iran, the release of prisoners last year, the outcomes of the 2019 uprisings against the government and those in 2020 after the Iranian government downed a Ukrainian jetliner, as well as viewpoints of members of the FAE in Afghanistan on the Taliban expansion as the US withdraws troops and words of solidarity for many places around the world in revolt against authority.
You can read reports by the FAE on their website, asranarshism.com, and keep up by following the project on twitter, fedbook, instagram, youtube and telegram (all listed from their website in the upper left hand corner). Keep an eye out for a fundraiser soon to support survival and defense needs of anarchists in Afghanistan as the Taliban takes back more territory and other initiatives. You can hear our 2020 interview with a member of the Anarchist Union of Afghanistan and Iran on our website, where it is also transcribed.
As a related announcements, this week the Federation has announced a week of solidarity with queer Iranian anarchist Abtin Parsa from July 12-19th, 2021. Abtin was persecuted by the Iranian government in 2014 for outspoken atheism (a state crime in a theocracy) and anti-state speech, imprisoned for a year and a half at 14 years old. In 2016 he escaped to Greece and was harassed and threatened while abroad by organizations affiliated with the Iranian state. Though given a limited political asylum in Greece, he was arrested multiple times for organizing and protesting, tortured and imprisoned for periods. Abtin was forced to leave Greece and he applied for asylum in Netherlands. In April of this year, Abin Parsa was charged by Dutch police with organizing among immigrants and now faces extradition back to Greece and possible extradition from there (after a prison sentence) to Iran. More on his case and his own words can be found linked in our show notes and on asranarshism.com and the Federation of Anarchism Era’s various social media.
. ... . ..