Friday, September 23, 2022
To Whom It May Concern:
The Persian American Civic Action Network (PACAN), a nonprofit organization was founded on the ideals of equality, equity, and the empowerment of all citizens in civic engagement to exercise and preserve their fundamental rights; regardless of gender, skin color, ethnicity, religious beliefs, nationality and/or creed.
As we are endowed with all the civil rights and civil liberties in our beautiful America, the land of the brave, the women of Iran have been subjugated to draconian notions of covering their heads in the public. Many of these women have bravely risked their life in standing up to the tyrannical rulers and their uniformed enforcers just to exercise their most sacred right on what to wear.
But, the news of the brutal murder of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, while in the custody of the so-called Morality Police, for non-conformity to full “Hejab”, has ignited the entire country and the suppressed citizens to assemble on the street corners of all cities in Iran. They are chanting and simply demanding an “end” to the Islamic Republic.
Just as we, Americans, collectively stood up for the people of Ukraine, Egypt, Myanmar, Syria, and the Chinese Uyghurs, or the Solidarity movement in Poland; Iranians are looking to us, as their beacon of hope, in getting their voices across the globe.
The regime in Tehran, by shutting down the internet is, once again, indiscriminately shooting the unarmed people on the streets, brutalizing the most vulnerable citizens; the youth and women while targeting innocent family members, without impunity. In the past week alone, the Islamic militia has killed many other innocent youngsters; many of them bystanders.
Secretary Janet Yellen authorized the US Department of Treasury to issue “general license D-2” to the private sector to increase support for internet freedom in Iran, only after Elon Musk spoke up.
Please join us, the privileged members of the free world in echoing the voices of women and people of Iran, in expressing their most fundamental rights of free speech and assembly, by merely issuing a message of support and condemnation of atrocities committed in the hands of the regime in Tehran.
PACAN
