This is the voice of the Mothers of Khavaran Cemetery^[i]

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Rise UP! You whose grief torches your hearts.
Lift your head from where you lie, prostrate in mourning
This is not a time to mourn!

It is a time to unleash your rage!
Turn your tears to rage! Shout out your rage!
Make your rage a fist to pound the palace of the oppressors!

Rise up.
The tulips and hyacinths are gone.
Anemones are waiting for your kind hands^[ii].

They have drenched the meadows red with blood!
So, rise hand in hand, shoulder-to-shoulder
Keep the Zhina revolution alive and on track!

May the outcry from the Mothers of Khavaran be your guiding light.
Rise up, mothers
O oppressed people of history, rise up!
Before the city walls are covered with [memorial] photos
Of those whose hearts yet beat with life and love.

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Poem by Shafagh, one of the Mothers of the Laleh Park^[iii]

Thursday, May 18, 2023

Published in a tweet and translated to English by IEC volunteers.

^[i] Mothers of Khavaran is an organization of mothers of victims of the massacre of thousands of political prisoners in the 1980s, whose bodies were hidden in mass graves in Khavaran Cemetery.

^[ii] Note by translator from Farsi: Tulip and hyacinth flowers often symbolize love and beauty. Anemone is a Greek word, "daughter-of-the-wind," and the anemone flower symbolizes anticipation of time to come.

^[iii] Mothers of Laleh Park is an organization of mothers of victims of the regime repression of the 2009 Green Movement.