A Window to the Fatherland/Dr. Nourizadeh/February 5

We begin tonight’s edition of A Window to the Fatherland with Dr. Alireza Nourizadeh reading one of his poems from the book of his collected works.

Dr. Alireza Nourizadeh:

Forty years ago these days were leading up to the Islamic revolution in Iran.

The first thing the new regime did was to arrest a number of the Shah’s ministers and top generals including the former Prime Minister Hoveyad and generals Rahimi, Jahanbani and Rabiee and executed them.

Last night I was talking to the widow of general Rahimi, Ms Manijeh, and told her that her husband stood his ground to the last minute and never surrendered to the henchmen of Khomeini who had once said that people need to learn heroism from Rahimi.

The bankruptcy of the regime forty years on could be seen in MP Ali Motahari’s recent comments who said if Iranian women walk on the street without wearing a hijab the Islamic republic will collapse!!

We had a socially free country before the likes of Motahari took over our country, which are effectively the earliest version of the Taliban but presented themselves as “revolutionaries”.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has met Iranian-Americanwomen’s rights activist and journalist Masih Alinejad and thanked her for her bravery.
Alinejad started anti-hijab movements, such as My Stealthy Freedoms, which resonated in Iran in 2017 and 2018 when many women removed their headscarves in public and many of them were arrested.

When she came to London we met in my office and she was determined to defend the rights of Iranian women in her campaign. Some people claim she has been supported by Israel and America but they are wrong as she is an independent women’s rights activist.