“Help me seek justice for my son. Help me stay in the path of seeking justice for my son. I promised Pejman to be his voice in every breath. Be our voice. Be the mothers’ voice. We don’t want anything else from you. Just be our voice. This is the only thing we need.”
These are the words of Mrs. Mahboubeh Ramezani, the bereaved mother of November 2019 martyr, Pejman Qolipour, who was gunned down at the age of 18 by security forces during Iran protests in November 2019.
In remarks which have been circulating on social media, Mrs. Ramezani unveiled some of the regime’s crimes committed against families of the martyrs of the November 2019 uprising. She asked everyone who hears her pleas to be the mothers’ voice, the voice of the mothers of November 2019 martyrs, and all the victims of persecutions in Iran by the clerical regime over the past 42 years.
Mrs. Ramezani revealed in her remarks how the regime had hindered the investigation into her son’s murder. She said: “I was looking for the camera which was above his head. I said, ‘please show me the recording of this camera, so that I know who killed my son.’ After 11 months, they brought me a fake letter and said: ‘The Municipality says on the 26th (of November 2019 exactly at the time my son had been shot), the camera had a short circuit.”
Mrs. Ramezani also spoke out against the intelligence services’ harassments and intimidations, preventing her from holding a memorial for her son.
“It has been two days that I want to hold a memorial for my son. But they have posted flags in that place saying that because of the Coronavirus, we can’t hold ceremonies. What do all these mean? Don’t you say that you did not kill him and it was the work of thugs? So, why are you afraid of us holding a memorial for the victims of November?
“You spent so much to install a camera above my son’s tombstone to check who comes and who goes! You are so miserable that you are afraid of my son’s tombstone. You must spend this money for those who bend down into garbage bins to find their food!”
Addressing the clerical regime’s leaders, she said: “Wherever we spoke out, they called and threatened us. They sent message that ‘we will take you to a place that no one would know.’ Go ahead and take me! Do you think that you killed Pejman? You have destroyed a whole family. Do you think you killed Navid (Behboudi)? You destroyed Navid’s family.”
Then she addressed her son and said: “Pejman! You were good! That’s why you’re gone. They killed all the good ones. There was not a single thief, or smuggler or addict among you! Look at the victims of November! Do you find anyone who is bad? All of them young, healthy, educated, loving. Why did you kill them? What danger did they pose to you? What could be the threat posed by my 18-year-old son? What was his danger that you used five bullets to kill him! A young man, only 18, so frail! Why did you need to use five bullets? One was enough!”
In the end, she addressed the regime’s leaders and said: “Our turn will come! We put you on the top, but a day will come when we will bring you down. We placed you on the top and we are going to bring you down. The page will turn and our turn will come, soon!”
