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Charter

Charter

Preamble:

Over a century has passed since the victory of Iran’s Constitutional Revolution. For over a century, Iranians have struggled for justice, freedom, and equality before the law. Generation after generation of Iranians have resisted autocrats and paid the price for their resistance with their lives.

This struggle continues to this day. The defeat of popular movements and the perversion of the people’s demands to serve the ends of despots, rentiers and other mercenaries have brought our homeland to the brink of a national death born from social collapse and economic and political chaos. The unprecedented devastation of the country’s environment and natural resources is proceeding to a point of no return, and the moment of respite during which we may yet relieve and reverse the damage done is rapidly expiring. With each passing day, economic inequality widens and class divisions become further entrenched. With each passing day, administrative, political, economic and moral corruption subject the lives of the Iranian people to increasing restriction and tighter confinement. This ongoing deterioration is in violent contradiction of true Iranian values.

Successive waves of emigration have institutionalized an exodus of talent and wealth, and those who remain in Iran continue their lives under the most suffocating oppression imaginable. Industries and trade critical to the nation’s well-being have taken a severe blow as a result of this flight of experts and wealth, and the gap between Iran and its neighbors and the world’s developed nations has progressively widened. Contrary to its lies and manufactured international posture, through the incompetence of its officials, through its repression of domestic genius and extraction of all value in the nation, by causing experts and well-meaning Iranians to flee, by diffusing corruption throughout its governing system, and by laundering and transferring the wealth it plunders to the outside world, the venal ruling order in Iran serves the very same capitalist system centered in a West which it labels “the Great Satan.” On the stage of international politics, the regime that governs Iran mirrors the most shameless violators of human rights in the region. Children, workers, intellectuals, humanitarian activists and the rights of women, ethnic and religious minorities, people of differing sexual orientations and others have all been systematically oppressed and sacrificed on the altar of the self-interest of this government and its partners. Under this regime, Iran’s millennia-old civilization with all its beauty, diversity and vivaciousness, with its joy and love of learning, with its unique ecological genius is in the process of rotting, and without the destruction of the Ahrimanic order, it is in danger of being lost forever. The generations of Iranians living today have realized that they are obligated to the generations that come to do whatever they must to change these conditions and preserve their invaluable heritage. The current uprising of the brave people of this land is an undeniable testament as to their heroic acceptance of this obligation.

Peyman Bamdad has been convened with the goal of replacing the current Ahrimanic government with a participatory, popular democratic, pluralist and ecologically-minded government, and in this endeavor, it is eager to collaborate with all informed and compassionate Iranian activists inside and outside of Iran’s borders. The initial aim of this organization is to cultivate a free and constructive discourse about the future of Iran and to design policies to resolve the crises outlined above and create a better future for all current and future residents of Iran. Peyman Bamdad has been convened to organize all deprived and oppressed Iranians within and outside of the borders of Iran and recognizes that its first mission along this path is to overthrow the current cruel, reactionary government in Iran, which this organization declares to be in complete contradiction with both the foundations of the rights of free peoples and the foundations of Iranian culture and civilization. In this regard and with our first step, Peyman Bamdad emphatically declares its commitment to all international human rights instruments and conventions.

The founders of this organization propose a society whose government originates from the people organically, wherein the people are involved in determining their political and economic destiny regularly and as a function of everyday life; a society in which government is tasked with ensuring the individual and collective freedoms of all members of society and supporting all of its citizens to live, learn and grow to their fullest potential and in the manner that they choose. We seek to move constantly and iteratively towards greater freedom and greater social, economic and political justice for all sections of society. We seek a society in which all people have equal opportunity to achieve their individual and collective goals in a healthy, peaceful and socially just manner. We seek a renewed understanding of government wherein the fundamentals of an honorable and dignified life are guaranteed, including, but not limited to: access to non-ideological education of the highest quality, universal health care and housing, just benefit from the results of one’s own work and from national wealth and production for all members of the society. Our dream is to live in a society where there is no oppressed class and all people have the possibility of peaceful coexistence, where all cultural, ethnic, ideological and political differences are preserved and valued, and no one in any position of power is immune from criticism, supervision and accountability. We seek such an outcome not only because these ideals are valuable in themselves, but also because we strongly believe that they are necessary for the strategic survival of the country. The realization of this dream may take a long time, and it will require that future generations strive for the same goals, but in this Charter, the founders of this organization share their dream to echo the cries of all Iranians who love freedom, their homeland and its civilization, in the hope that this common dream is superior to all historical, cultural, ethnic and political differences, and that striving towards the fruits of such a vision will help to preserve our unity and free us from the current lamentable situation so that we may build a better future.

Guiding Principles:

The members of Peyman Bamdad believe that the people of this unique civilization have the capacity to solve the current challenges that face them. We believe that prosperity, justice, and a peaceful life are the right of every member of this society, regardless of ethnic background, personal and religious beliefs, and gender and sexual orientations. A society that does not guarantee fundamental human rights and extend prosperity, justice and peace to all its members can no longer remain stable, especially in a country like Iran, which historically has been the origin and host of a multitude of different and diverse cultures and has likewise always been unique in the world in terms of its cultural, linguistic, and ethnic diversity. We, the members of Peyman Bamdad, affirm that today, we must emphasize our historical and cultural commonalities and strengthen that which binds us together. Iranians, women and men, who have tasted the injustice, repression and corruption under the successive autocratic regimes ruling Iran over the decades must unite—for only together will we be able to break this bitter cycle and realize a new dream.

Learning from the ancient cultural heritage of Iran and drawing inspiration from the deep commonalities, shared values and historical solidarity of the people of this land, this organization seeks to create a successful and dynamic society that secures the basic rights of all members of society and builds a prosperous country administered and protected by a people’s government dedicated to the good of all. All the residents of Iran, regardless of their ethnic, religious and linguistic affiliations, should see their place in society guaranteed in its constitution and future governmental system. In the service of these goals, this organization is ready to cooperate with all people, political groups and parties who share the values outlined below and accept them as the basis of a common program for joint cooperation:

  • The separation of religion from politics
  • The prohibition the interference of religious organizations in politics, society and the national educational system
  • Nationalization of all property of religious and military institutions affiliated with the Ahrimanic system
  • Equal rights under the law for all people
  • Recognition of the rights of women
  • End of all laws, discrimination, and punishments based on Shari’a and other Islamic legal or religious reasoning, end of Qisas and Hadd, end of Diya, end of imprisonment for unpaid debts
  • A new framework for law, policy, and decision-making built upon reverence for the inherent value and humanity of all Iranians, men and women, that strives towards progressively expanding freedom for all
  • Freedom of religion
  • Freedom of speech and freedom of conscience
  • Freedom of the press
  • Freedom to form political parties and citizens’ associations
  • Freedom of assembly and the right to protest
  • The rights of workers to organize and manage their workplaces democratically
  • Recovery of plundered national wealth
  • Recognition and expansion of the right to privacy
  • Equal access to justice for all members of society
  • The right to choose one’s spouse
  • The right to free health care for life for all people
  • The right to free education for life for all people
  • Access to employment in comportment with human dignity
  • The right to housing
  • The right of all citizens to participate in economic planning and decision-making
  • The creation of structures for democratic input and oversight of the development and deployment of new technologies rather than allowing the free market to dictate the course of technological progress
  • The emphasis and promotion of the dignity of the elderly, including the provision of adequate pensions to maintain a dignified standard of living
  • The protection of the country’s natural resources
  • Creation of a clear plan and timetable for the transition away from the extractive economy
  • The promotion of geographically balanced economic development throughout the country, with a concentration on ensuring economic justice in deprived areas
  • Protecting and restoring the environment and implementing short- and long-term solutions to the water crisis
  • Preparing and preventing possible damage due to climate change
  • Ensuring the rights of people with disabilities
  • Ensuring children’s rights and recognizing our collective duty to children and the future of Iran
  • Freedom from any manner of discrimination as a precondition for the creation of a society that ensures dignity and respect for all
  • The unconditional prohibition of any lifetime, unelected and/or hereditary offices
  • Constitutionally mandated government transparency in all matters, elections and auditorial and prosecutorial oversight conducted by councils filled by ordinary citizens selected by sortition for limited terms
  • The prohibition of torture and the death penalty
  • The rights of asylum seekers and refugees and extension of the citizenship law to qualified applicants
  • Recognition of the diversity and inviolability of Iranian civilization
  • The revision of international agreements and institution of a foreign policy based on the national interest

1. The separation of religion from politics and the exclusion of religion from the public sphere is an essential prerequisite of competent governance. The members of Peyman Bamdad stand in complete opposition to any organized religious interference in politics, judicial and legal matters, the administrative process, educational institutions. Likewise, religious identity and/or the intervention of religious authorities can never be used to define or limit citizens’ access to public services. All members of society have the right to observe their traditions and uphold their beliefs in their personal lives and/or in places designated for collective worship. Outside such spaces, no individual or organized group has the right to impose their religious beliefs, rituals, or customs on others, nor is it acceptable to utilize the public space to carry out their ceremonies. Government is tasked with implementing this important principle and monitoring its observance, and in this regard it is vital that the government itself does not have any religious orientation.

2. The hawzas (Shi’a religious seminaries) have been the main agent of the ongoing deleterious interference of religion in politics throughout the modern history of Iran and are the conduit through which the parasitic clergy reproduce their sociopolitical class. To guarantee the separation of religion from politics, therefore, all seminaries and their affiliated institutions must be closed and destroyed forever and all property appurtenant thereto returned to the national treasury.

3. All human beings are equal before the law, regardless of their intellectual beliefs, ethnic and racial affiliations, gender, or inherited status, and as members of the society, they have the same rights and duties. No factor can be used to justify the preferential treatment of one individual over another before the law.

 4. The equal rights of men and women in all legal and social matters are foundational and non-negotiable in all civilized societies. Any discrimination or violence against women, or diminution of their rights in fields such as education, employment, or marriage is an assault on the rights and security of all citizens. The state must be constitutionally and legally obligated to assiduously fight against any existing gender-based discrimination and violence and provide all necessary legal infrastructure to achieve this goal, and to observe gender parity at all levels of government.

5. Shari’a is violently and inherently incompatible with democracy and human rights. Any attempt to explain away the inherent totalitarianism, misogyny, arbitrariness and medieval irrationality of Shari’a with explanations that it is manifestation of a different culture outside of the Western tradition, or by suggesting that further exceptions or reformulations may allow for the implementation of a less destructive Islamic legal system are delusional. The legal system that this regime upholds is derived from a text written centuries ago in another land in another language based on another conception of morality meant to be frozen and obeyed for all time. This is in constant contradiction with the culture, morality and philosophy that grew from Iranian civilization emphasizing the regular exercise of free will, reason, conscience, and intellect. The members of Peyman Bamdad loudly and unequivocally proclaim that all laws, discriminatory categories, and punishments based on Shari’a and other Islamic legal or religious reasoning must be immediately and irrevocably erased from Iran’s body of laws, and that all laws of evidence, family law, criminal law, and civil law must be based only on the principles of logic, social utility, and the inherent respect for all human life and subject to the popular will, with the possibility of regular modification through democratic input at the national level as the needs of society evolve. It is especially urgent that the first steps of transition from the Ahrimanic system include immediate reversals of the retributive justice of Qisas and Hadd as the basis for criminal law, of the religious and gender discrimination and inherent encouragement to lawlessness of Diya as the basis for calculating the value of human life, and of the imprisonment of citizens for unpaid debts.

6. Peyman Bamdad has been formed around a shared belief that the new order must be built upon a reverence for the inherent value and humanity of all Iranians regardless of distinction that strives to continually expand the definitions of freedom and justice for all members of society.

7. Freedom of speech and freedom of conscience are fundamental and ancient principles of human rights. In Iran’s future system of government, respect for these freedoms must be accepted as a moral principle and as the basis for organized social and political discourse, and fully applied in all organizations, laws and government institutions. No one may be prosecuted or subjected to punishment for holding a certain opinion or expressing it, and any investigation into the individual opinions and beliefs of individuals for the purposes of rewarding or sanctioning those who hold specific opinions must be prohibited by law. The press must always have the freedom to publish all opinions and reflect all beliefs and tendencies, political or otherwise, and apart from exceptional cases such as the encouragement of violence against individuals or groups or calls for the imposition of limitations of the rights of others, no public or private authority can claim the right to impose censorship on the press.

8. To ensure that the political process represents the popular will, and to enshrine the inviolability of the freedom of association, the formation of political parties and groups active in civil society, labor and any other sphere of economic or social activity must be free for all members of society. All people have the right to form parties and groups of their choice while observing the principle of non-violence, working within the framework of the country’s constitution, and respecting the basic rights of all citizens. To avoid the abuse of these rights by destructive forces it will be necessary for these groups to maintain complete transparency in political principles and regularly publish all pertinent financial details for public scrutiny. In comportment with the freedom of assembly and right to protest, these groups will have complete freedom to organize nonviolent gatherings and participate in the electoral process, recruit members, and publish whatever content they desire, and correspondingly, the government is obliged to fully ensure the security of all nonviolent gatherings.

9. The equality of all citizens under the law and access to an impartial judicial system are among the most important foundations of a healthy and prosperous society. The government must act to guarantee all rights to which persons and groups are entitled, and where civil or criminal disputes arise, judicial, executive and prosecutorial authorities must ensure that these rights are upheld by fair and impartial courts, public trials and the presence of lay juries wherever possible. Likewise, the judicial and prosecutorial apparatuses must promptly process all claims and the executive branch is compelled to act on the judgments issued in these courts. The courts of the country should be based on the principle of separation of powers and be free of any political and religious tendencies and affiliations, and judgments should be based solely on the text of the law.

10. Peyman Bamdad affirms that a truly democratic future will only come about when the rights of all citizens who must sell their time and labor to feed, clothe and house themselves and their families are accounted for. The right to benefit from the fruits of one’s labor and live a dignified and honorable life is essential and fundamental to the realization and exercise of all other rights, and governmental authorities must design and enact necessary laws and regulations to prevent exploitation and ensure the right to form trade unions and engage in collective bargaining. Moreover, to combat unemployment, provide opportunity and secure the nation’s future, the government must also work assiduously to create purposeful and productive employment for all citizens who seek it by means of a strong and organized industrial policy.

11. Factories and key industries currently owned or operated by supporters and beneficiaries of the current system, its security forces, or other rentiers must be returned to public control as justice and reason dictate and placed under the day-to-day management of their workers.

12. The right to privacy is another undeniable precondition for the functioning of a healthy democratic society and the preservation of human dignity. Government authorities will not have any right to enter or search residences and other private places or search any private property, personal information or affects without a legal warrant obtained after the demonstration of proper cause.

13. In accordance with the right to privacy and limitation of government interference in personal matters, all members of the society, regardless of sexual orientation or gender, must have the freedom to select the spouse of their choice while observing the minimum legal age of marriage, and neither the government nor private parties can be permitted to encroach on this fundamental right. Likewise, ethnic identity, intellectual tendencies and other such factors cannot be utilized as obstacles to limit the exercise of this right.

14. Access to housing is recognized as a fundamental right of all persons in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the government is obliged to act in order to realize this for all the residents of the country. In the future of Iran, no one, regardless of economic and social status, should remain homeless. Without safe and appropriate housing, other freedoms cannot be reliably exercised. To ensure the health and stability of the democratic process, therefore, the state must enact whatever measures are necessary to provide adequate housing for all, including the implementation of effective regulations on real estate transactions, and the construction and maintenance of public housing as needed by society.

15. Access to free health care for life is integral to the exercise of the right to life, and government policy must ensure that every member of society has access to appropriate health services without discrimination and without regard to social class or other affiliations.

16. Education is not only a basic human right, but the basis of a dynamic, self-conscious and self-critical society. A new approach to the role of education in human society is an essential precondition for a fundamental reimagining of the purpose of life as an ongoing process of growth, learning, and the acquisition of wisdom. Our ancestors saw this process of gradual and iterative self-perfection as the very reason that we exist. To realize this vision, government must provide lifelong access to free education and training to all members of society regardless of their age, gender, intellectual, religious, ethnic and social class affiliations, based only on individual merit and interest. The country’s educational system must likewise be free of any ideological or religious orientation at all levels. Educational materials and teachers must be selected based on objective, relevant criteria and the educational system must be zealously protected against the intrusion of religious or political orientations into pedagogy, and education must be treated as a public service rather than a tool to use for or against any worldview or political orientation. This is fundamental to the health of any democratic system. Furthermore, education will be recognized as a lifelong right, both because it creates a more prosperous and self-sufficient society in practice and more fundamentally because the process of acquiring knowledge should never end as long as we live.

17. This fully secular educational system must also provide students with the opportunity to study in their mother tongues, and in order to strengthen understanding and interdependence between all Iranian ethnic groups, in Persian-speaking areas, other Iranian languages should be taught along with the instruction of foreign languages.

18. Access to employment in accordance with human dignity is likewise inseparable from and essential to the exercise of other rights, and every member of society must be able to work in any field based on his/her individual merit, skill and expertise, without considering other personal relationships, social affiliations or individual opinions. The state must ensure that no person is prevented from employment in a particular field or forced into a particular field based on any criterion other than skill and expertise.

19. To strengthen democracy and prevent any future regression into lawlessness or dictatorship, the country’s economic system must always be shaped by and administered according to popular input via direct democracy, through participation in political parties, or through collective decision-making in the workplace. The role of the people in determining how to manage the country’s economy must be institutionalized in law. In the current economic framework, people participate in the economy, but despite their labors and the additional value they produce at work, they do not have the right to participate in decision-making relevant to this significant part of their lives. Such an economy is contrary to the core principles of democracy. In the future, people will participate together in decision-making and economic planning, both in the workplace and at higher levels. In addition to this, the fair distribution of wealth and national production among social classes must be specified in the future system and ensured in its constitution.

20. Likewise, the constitution of the future system of government must provide for structures allowing democratic input and oversight regarding the development and deployment of new technologies. The noble Iranian people must be able to determine this aspect of their fate themselves through the deployment of transparent deliberative mechanisms that allow for the preservation and expansion of the public good rather than succumbing to the irrational guidance of human technological development by profit motive. Rather than allowing the free market to dictate the course of technological progress, democracy will allow for an alternate path to the future. Concurrently, as technological and material circumstances change, the legislature will be tasked with refining the nation’s charter of rights so as to protect human freedom and social justice as needed.

21. It is axiomatic that recapturing the wealth extracted and plundered by those connected to the current Ahrimanic colonial regime in these decades both inside and outside Iran and returning it to the people as its rightful owners must be one of the main priorities of the future.

22. The elderly are one of the important assets of any country and their precious experience and wisdom will always be the light that guides future generations. Maintaining this important social capital and providing dignified and comfortable lives for the elderly is a national duty. As a result, the state must ensure appropriate, reliably disbursed pensions and the unlimited use of services such as access to quality healthcare for all such individuals.

23. The underground resources and natural wealth of the country in every corner of this vast land belong to the current generations and all the unseen children of Iran. All Iranians should benefit from this national wealth regardless of where they live, and it must be allocated exclusively for investing in the country’s future and economic infrastructure, transportation, communication, power generation and distribution and fuel, and infrastructure related to other technical needs. An organized and well-planned reduction with a clearly defined future end to the country’s reliance on the extractive economy that has been prevailed in the country for decades and has led to the spread of corruption, the strengthening of its ruling classes under successive despotic regimes, and the preclusion of the establishment of democracy is also integral to the long-term survival of the country and the prosperity of its people.

24. The environment that serves as the backdrop of the growth and prosperity of the civilization that occupies it is likewise necessary for its continuation. It is the first source and most fundamental source of its wealth, because we cannot separate ourselves from the environment in which we live—indeed, we are a part of it. Countless generations of our Iranian ancestors were aware of this important principle and tried to maintain the purity of the water, air, land and the life of this place and protect it from pollution. Today, these values have been subverted by the Ahrimanic forces ruling Iran, who plunder and loot our homeland everyday with the rapacity of the worst colonial regime. The country’s renewable and non-renewable resources are being destroyed at an unprecedented rate due to improper administration and the recklessness of the authorities. Iranians, women and men, must work shoulder to shoulder to save our shared environment from the current crisis. As we work to change the political and economic structure that governs the country, we must never lose sight of this profound moral obligation we have to future generations.

25. An already-worrying scale of damage caused by global climate change can be observed both in Iran and in neighboring countries, and since none of the countries in the world have shown the political will to face this complicated phenomenon, in the long term, the government of the future must be aware of acceleration of this process and the threat it poses both to the country’s climate and its long-term habitability. The duty of the government regarding this crisis in the near future is to prepare the country by limiting the vulnerability of natural systems, especially in the soil, water table and the various biogeochemical cycles necessary for the sustenance of life. At the same time, the man-made environment, from water reservoirs to transportation, electricity, agricultural, industrial, communications, and housing infrastructure, should be prepared for climate change and long-term crises caused by it, including abnormal weather and other natural events.

26. Any society that deprives or disables a part of itself limits its own potential and diminishes its diversity and capacity for free popular participatory decision-making. This can only weaken the whole and damage its collective future and competence. Our ancestors believed that the light of all of the universe is present in all of us and reducing it in each member of society is an insult to the whole of society, and in the internal culture and ethics of Iran’s unique civilization, this truth is known implicitly to this day. Following this logic, securing the rights of people with disabilities is fundamental and necessary to the health of the Iran of the future. Human dignity, individual independence, freedom from discrimination, the right to participate in all sectors and decisions of the society, and the right of all Iranians with disabilities to determine their individual destinies must be ensured. Society will not be deprived of the presence and participation of all its members in determining the common future of the country.

27. In our society, children and future generations have always held a special importance. The duty of government towards this group requires careful planning and a view to the needs and problems of the future. Government must recognize all rights mentioned in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and explicitly limit the age of criminal responsibility and the age of marriage to 18 years and above.

28. Peyman Bamdad categorically rejects all lifelong positions and positions that are not obtained based on the merits of individuals or their direct election by the people. All officials of the country must be elected by the people based on their merits, and stresses that there are no other valid or reasonable criteria for selecting the country’s officials. All appointed and elected officials must have fixed terms and be subject to the continuous scrutiny of institutionalized monitoring mechanisms so that they can be removed from office as soon as they commit violations or lose competence, and so that, subject to law, all are held accountable for their performance in office.

29. Complete transparency regarding funding, spending, and decision-making processes is essential in ensuring that government officials and institutions at all levels maintain appropriate priorities and uphold the public trust in all functions. To foster this transparency, Peyman Bamdad believes that the constitution of the future government of Iran must mandate this government transparency in all matters and that all public officials must accept to have their entire financial lives revealed to the public on a real-time basis. In addition, oversight must be carried out by ordinary citizens—aided by professionals—to ensure that the function of the state and the execution of laws passed by democratically elected institutions do not become perverted over the course of time. To achieve this outcome, electoral and auditorial oversight and prosecutorial decision-making must be conducted by councils filled by ordinary citizens selected by sortition for brief, limited terms.

30. Prohibitions against torture and of the death penalty are in place in much of the world today, are in accordance with numerous international human rights instruments, and serve as the pillars of criminal justice systems based on fact-based evidence and rehabilitation rather than retribution, respectively. These prohibitions must be codified and observed in the future Iran, in constitution and in law.

31. The treatment of asylum seekers and refugees, whether from neighboring countries or from other countries, must be in accordance with international resolutions and agreements, and refugees in Iran must be able to obtain citizenship and use all the facilities allocated to other members of the society. The future law of citizenship should have clear and codified stages for this process, from the time of obtaining asylum to the moment of accession to citizenship, and in all these stages, the human dignity of these individuals must be respected.

32. The existence and identity of Iranian civilization predate the modern European conception of the nation-state by millennia. That civilization has always been at its strongest when it has allowed and valued its philosophical, religious, intellectual, linguistic, ethnic, and social diversity. It is a civilization, rather than a nation-state, that has been a locus of internal discourse and debate along all of these axes and others, and while never being closed off from the world, it has contributed greatly to the world through the discourse and syntheses played out through this internal diversity. As such, while recognizing that the rights and hopes of all must play a role in shaping the future, Peyman Bamdad stresses unequivocally that any foreign intervention or attack on this ancient and dynamic civilization is destructive not only to Iran and all of the Iranian people, but to all of humanity.

33. The future government of Iran is obliged to review any international agreements and other instruments signed by the current or past despotic regimes that touch on the national interests of the country. No agreements until the present time have been approved by the Iranian public and thus must be considered to have been made under duress. In cases where such agreements are in contradiction with national interests and new conditions, they will be canceled or modified. In particular, no trade agreements signed by the current regime, which have no purpose other than to maintain its power and benefit the classes loyal to it, will have a place in the future administration of the country. The foreign policy of the future government should be determined based only on national interests, the development of the country, and the maintenance of good relations with all the countries of the world. In addition, the future government is obliged to assiduously seek reparations for harms caused to the country by foreign governments in recent history and to defend the violated rights of the Iranian people in international courts to the furthest extent possible.

Conclusion:

In establishing the Iran of tomorrow, we must face Iran’s ancient and contemporary history and reach a new understanding of them in order to strengthen and deepen self-awareness regarding the many wounds and reactions thereto caused by our past and present. With a critical look and an ambition to learn from the bitter and sweet experiences of previous generations and popular movements in Iran and around the world, we must establish a popular democratic system founded on the inherently Iranian principles of living peacefully and harmoniously with nature and with one another that honors the brave Iranian people. In acknowledging this civilizational experience and our precious shared historical heritage, the ultimate goal of Peyman Bamdad is to help to gift the Iranian people with a government that, while providing the values enjoyed in the modern government systems of the world, avoids the mistakes and shortcomings of those systems and creates a new, credible version of governance of society worthy of esteem and worthy of the struggles and desires of Iranians—those of today, those of the days to come, and those of days past.

In the hope that in a new morning after this dark, long night, hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder, in the streets of immortal Iran, together we will sing the anthem of freedom, equality, and dignity for all.