Statement of the Tudeh Party of Iran

The killing of thousands of people protesting deprivation, poverty, corruption, and the suppression of freedom and human rights is a clear symbol of the criminal and anti-people nature of Iran's theocratic regime

19 January 2026

The killing of thousands of our fellow Iranians by security forces during the recent popular protests against the anti-national policies of the theocratic regime was a shocking and unprecedented massacre in recent decades and a new chapter in the Islamic Republic's criminal record against the Iranian people.

In his January 17 speech, Ali Khamenei [the "Supreme Leader"], while admitting that several thousand people were killed in the recent popular protests, claimed that "evil and trained agents" had killed them using "ignorant and uninformed agents." In recent decades, whenever a wave of popular protests against the Islamic Republic's disastrous, anti-national, and anti-people policies has swept the country's cities, the regime has resorted to bloodshed and violent suppression of these rights-seeking protest movements, attributing them to "conspiracy and foreign factors."

People remember the massacre of thousands of political prisoners in the summer of 1988, including holding kangaroo courts and the execution of hundreds of Tudeh militants and other activists of leftist and patriotic forces, which was also carried out under the pretext that those freedom fighters were "spies" and "foreign agents." Since then, every legitimate popular protest and uprising has been met with the killing of opposition, the arrest of thousands of protesters, and the torture and execution of dissidents at the regime's Supreme Leader's orders.

In addition, the July 9, 1999 attack by repressive forces on the dormitories of the University of Tehran and other universities in the country and the violent and bloody suppression of the protesting students, which took place on July 9-14 following the closure of the newspaper Salam during the Khatami administration, were considered by the regime to be a "foreign conspiracy."

The demonstrations of millions of people on June 15, 2009, in Tehran and other major cities to protest the proclaimed results of Iran's presidential elections– i.e. Ahmadinejad's winning the election and Khamenei's resolute defence of him– were also a conspiracy of "global arrogance" according to the regime's Supreme Leader. Those protests were crushed with bloodshed by the regime's security forces,who attacked the University of Tehran and then opened fire on the protesters. Thousands of people were arrested and thrown into dungeons. And the following year (February 2011), Mir Hossein Mousavi, Zahra Rahnavard, and Mehdi Karroubi were sentenced to house arrest as the leaders of the "conspiracy", the first two of whom are still under house arrest.

The popular uprising of January 26-9, 2018, which began in Mashhad in protest against high prices and the policies of the Rouhani government and was quickly met with a bloody raid and repression by the regime's security forces, was also seen by the Islamic Republic's leaders as a "counter-revolutionary" conspiracy. In a January 7, 2018 statement, the IRGC claimed that "the United States, Britain, Israel, the MEK and the monarchists" were linked to the protests, and praised "tens of thousands of Basijis [Islamic militia]" for confronting the protests and "subsiding the riots". In a public meeting on January 9, 2018, Ali Khamenei also accused the United States, Britain and Israel, saying that these powers have been plotting to incite people and demonstrations in small cities in Iran for a few months before the start of the protests, and that "this is the plot of the Americans and the agents of the Zionist regime."

The widespread popular protests in November 2019, which became known as "Bloody November" because of the brutal massacre of people, were also described by the regime leaders as a "foreign conspiracy". The protests began on November 15, 2019, after the resumption of gasoline rationing in Iran and a 200% increase in the price of gasoline without prior notice, and spread to 29 provinces and hundreds of cities in the country. Ali Khamenei, while calling the plan to increase the price of gasoline necessary and defending it, ordered the repression of the people. Referring to the deaths of a number of protesters, he attributed the burning of banks and the unrest to "the villains, counter-revolutionaries, and enemies of Iran." News agencies and human rights organizations put the death toll from that year's protests at 1,500.

The popular protest uprising in September 2022, which began following the killing of Mahsa (Jina) Amini in the morality police detention centre in Tehran and became known as the "Woman, Life, Freedom" uprising, quickly spread to all provinces of the country and hundreds of cities in Iran and lasted for more than four months. According to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, these protest demonstrations were also the plan of foreigners. The violent and bloody crackdown on these protests resulted in hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries. According to the UN fact-finding committee's investigation, the Islamic Republic has resorted to murder, torture, and rape to suppress protests and committed crimes against humanity. On the 18th day of widespread popular protests that year, Ali Khamenei appeared before the armed forces after a long absence, calling the protesters "rioters" and calling for the crackdown on the protests to continue.

All these encounters are a clear indication of the anti-people nature of the religious-capitalist dictatorship ruling our country. Over the past four decades, the regime has devastated the country's economy by implementing disastrous neoliberal policies, imposing poverty and deprivation on tens of millions of Iranian families, and posing serious threats to the country's security and territorial integrity by continuing its adventurous regional policies. The regime's criminal actions are not detached from this nature. There can be no excuse or justification for such horrific crimes, and people cannot be prevented from legitimate and peaceful protests against these destructive policies and demanding a decent life.

It is clear that foreign mercenary and reactionary forces, such as the operatives of monarchists and other proxies of foreign powers such as the Mojahedin (MEK), with the support of US imperialism and the criminal and genocidal government of Israel, are ready to exploit the hatred and disgust of the majority of society against the reactionary and anti-people regime of the Islamic Republic to take away any protest uprising for their own benefit. These currents are ready to turn the popular protests into violence with the help of foreign mercenaries, and ultimately prepare the ground for foreign interference in the internal affairs of our country.

The pleading of mercenaries like Reza Pahlavi to Donald Trump, the European Union, and the most reactionary far-right forces in the world, and criminals like Netanyahu to intervene in the events in Iran on the one hand, and the efforts of imperialist and affiliated media such as the BBC and Iran International to "manufacturea leader" have now become a major challenge to the people's movement on the ground and all the progressive and freedom-loving patriotic forces of the country. The concerted efforts of the imperialist powers and their Iranian mercenaries have given the current autocratic rulers an excuse to suppress the ongoing struggle with more violence. The national and popular struggle for the transition from the Islamic Republic to the establishment of a national-democratic republic, based on the people's right to self-determination, and the realization of democratic freedoms and rights, is facing such difficulties today.

As our Party emphasized in its January 9 statement, we believe that by replacing the current theocratic-capitalist dictatorship with the monarchy-capitalist regime, it is not possible to create a free future liberated from the tyranny and yoke of the imperialist powers to move towards the realization of social justice. As we have witnessed before the 1979 revolution, this time the monarchistregime will once again turn Iran into a military base for imperialism in the region, plundering Iran's oil and other natural resources, and suppressing dissidents under its monopolistic rule. The forces that look to the pseudo-fascist Trump administration and the criminal Israeli government for the "liberation of Iran" cannot be the harbingers of an independent, free, and prosperous Iran. The excruciating experience of Iraq and Libya after the direct intervention of global imperialism in the internal affairs of these countries should be a serious alarm to all of Iran's progressive and freedom-loving patriotic forces.

The way to save Iran from the clutches of the ruling dictatorship and prevent foreign interference is through the broad cooperation of the country's progressive, justice-seeking, and freedom-loving patriots around specific tactical slogans and the establishment of a joint command centre to guide and advance the legitimate protest struggle of the people of the country. The theocratic regime is unable to save itself from the current economic, social, and political crisis and deadlocks. The regime may survive with bloody repression, but sooner or later it will suffer the same fate as the Pahlavi dictatorship in Iran. Without the readiness of the country's progressive and freedom-loving patriotic forces for such a day, a serious danger threatens our homeland, its territorial integrity and its future, and all the achievements of popular movements in recent decades will be endangered. We, along with other progressive and freedom-loving patriotic forces in the country, call for the immediate and unconditional release of all those arrested in recent days and all political-civil activist prisoners, as well as an end to the blackout of mass communication networks and the internet.

The Tudeh Party of Iran

19 January 2026

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