Written by Visiting Fellow Vafa Fanaii At the onset of the Biden administration, a group of Iranian activists wrote a letter to President Biden, drawing attention to the pro-democracy movement in Iran and expressing their opposition to the regime and its repressive policies. This letter represented a bold act of defiance against a tyrannical government, with signatories risking their lives to criticize the regime publicly. Unfortunately, the Biden administration did not listen. The IRI viewed this letter as treasonous and responded with force. Many of the signatories have been imprisoned, placed in solitary confinement, and tortured. Yet, even from behind bars, these activists have found ways to protest, establishing covert communication to issue a second open letter to President Biden. The letter asserts that sanctions relief empowers the Islamic Republic to fund its security apparatus, further destabilizing the region and oppressing the Iranian people without providing any economic benefit to everyday Iranians. Moreover, the signatories argue that Iranians are willing to endure the economic consequences of sanctions, whatever they may be, to cripple the regime and more effectively fight for their freedom. However, this fight for freedom becomes increasingly difficult when the regime is enriched, as it has under the Biden administration. Therefore, the signatories urge the United States to reinforce sanctions and to encourage the EU to do the same.

Context: Why Sanctions Relief Fails to Help Everyday Iranians

To understand the activists' arguments, it's essential to examine how Iran’s economy is structured. The regime has systematically created an economy designed to sustain and protect its security apparatus through a network of regulatory agencies, government ministries, and laws. For example, entities like the Basij and the Islamic Advertisement Organization monitor and manipulate contracts to favor regime loyalists. Additionally, the Basij Corporate Fund allows regime loyalists to use government funds and tax dollars to acquire key corporations and businesses at heavily subsidized prices. The regime also vets all foreign investment through FIPPA laws to ensure that national security interests are protected and that all of the regime's laws, including its morality laws, are enforced. Essentially, the regime has implemented a grand corruption strategy to control the economy. Thus, as the activists point out, sanctions relief does not help the Iranian people; it only strengthens the regime’s security apparatus. An examination of the regime’s expenditures alongside the wealth disparity in Iran highlights this point. During the JCPOA years (2015-2017), when many sanctions were lifted, the regime’s military expenditure rose from $10.6 billion to $13.9 billion, while its Gini index, which measures wealth inequality, increased from 35.3% to 36.7%. This trend persisted until 2018 when Iran’s Gini index peaked at 37.4%. During the maximum pressure campaign (2018-2020), the regime’s military expenditure dropped to $3 billion, and the Gini index fell to 35.8%.

Sanction Relief Leads to More Executions

The letter also argues that sanctions relief increases the regime's capacity to suppress its people. A comparison of the number of executions during the JCPOA years versus the maximum pressure years supports this argument. Between 2015 and 2017, executions ranged from 517 to 972 annually, but from 2018 to 2020, they dropped to 267 and 273 respectively. These figures are just one example of the correlation between sanction relief and the regime’s ability to intensify its repression.

Sanction Relief Allows the Regime to Use Regional Instability as a Cover for Domestic Repression

The letter points out that the regime often takes advantage of instability it sows in the region as an opportunity to intensify domestic repression while international focus is elsewhere, as it is doing now. This strategy has been in place since the regime’s inception. In 1979, thousands took to the streets to protest the regime's morality laws, specifically the mandatory hijab laws. In the following months, the Iran-Iraq war broke out. While both Iranians and the international community were focused on the war, the regime consolidated power and enforced more oppressive laws (i.e., instituting the penalty of 75 lashes on women not wearing a hijab properly). Today, while the world is focused on the regime's conflict with Israel, the regime has passed a new Hijab Chastity Bill, which imposes harsher penalties for improper hijab-wearing and has increased the presence of the morality police, leading to more arrests and executions. At least 388 people have been killed in the first seven months of 2024, with 87 deaths in June alone. Ultimately, sanctions relief triggers a domino effect, enabling the regime to fund its proxy wars, which in turn creates regional instability that the regime exploits as an opportunity to crack down on Iranians.

Iranians Are “Willing to Endure”

The letter's authors, mainly middle- to lower-class Iranians, have suffered under sanctions. Still, they are willing to bear the burden of higher prices because they know their sacrifice will reduce the regime's revenue. Fatemeh Sepehri, a signatory facing up to 18 years in prison, emphasized, “We want the world and the international community not to recognize the regime, not negotiate with it, and not fund it.” The letter urges the Biden administration to act now, warning that the regime's oppression could lead to a Syria-style civil war. Despite the brutal violence experienced during the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, Iranians continue to fight for freedom and democracy. Recently, nurses and truck drivers have gone on strike and held public rallies, fully aware of the risks involved, again showing the world that Iranians are willing to pay the highest price for freedom and democracy. Ultimately, the letter points out that the ongoing pro-democracy movement is a fire that will not be put out, and the Biden administration, along with future U.S. administrations, have an opportunity to support the movement by enforcing sanctions or continuing down the path of negotiations with the Islamic Republic in Iran, which only leads to more regional instability and more innocent Iranians being murdered by the regime. Read the full text of the letter below: Wednesday, August 21, 2024 In the name of the Creator of Peace, Freedom, and Humanity, Your Excellency President Joe Biden, Greetings to you and the great people of the United States of America, As you are aware, four years ago, at the beginning of your presidency, a group of political activists residing in Iran and opposed to the policies of the Islamic Republic wrote, signed, and delivered a letter to you. With the onset of threats from security agencies, a few were forced to retract their signatures, and the rest were subjected to heavy costs such as imprisonment, several months of detention, solitary confinement, and torture. To this day, some of them remain imprisoned in various prisons across the country. A few members of that group, who were able to establish communication under difficult security conditions inside and outside the prisons, decided to convey to you at the end of your presidential term the consequences of ignoring the previous letter, hoping that at least the next U.S. president, other officials of powerful European countries, and the United Nations will hear the voice of the Iranian people. In the letter, we requested that you consider the hostile strategies of the Islamic Republic and recognize that granting the regime access to frozen financial resources and refusing to enforce sanctions that targeted the regime’s main revenue streams would bring no economic benefit to our people. Instead, it would fuel the regime's militias, lead to the formation of new military branches in the Middle East, and ignite proxy wars. We, the signatories of that letter, held no government or military positions that would allow us to profit from the sanctions and the smuggling of goods controlled by military and governmental officials, especially the Revolutionary Guards. Most of us belong to the middle or even lower classes of society, the same class that has been crushed under the weight of sanctions, but understand that lifting sanctions under the current circumstances would only contribute to the survival of the Islamic Republic's dictatorship and its warmongering, and thus are willing to endure those conditions. Mr. Biden, Instead of listening to our firsthand experiences, you have attempted to appease the ruling regime in Iran, and by releasing the national assets of the plundered Iranian people over to the Islamic Republic, you have witnessed what calamities the regime has brought upon us and the people of the region, particularly the current situation in Gaza. Despite the indirect assistance of your administration, during which the regime reportedly sold nearly 2 million barrels of oil daily, and the release of Iran's frozen assets from South Korea, China, Iraq, and others, the Raisi administration not only failed to reduce poverty and general inflation by one percent but also subjected the people to such poverty and misery that the country reached the brink of explosion, as witnessed in the national movement for the late Mahsa Amini, known as the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. Once again, our youths were massacred and tortured in the streets and detention centers because you did not believe our words. Once again, windfall money was channeled into missile and drone factories. And once again, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the dictator Bashar al-Assad's army, Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces, Yemen's Houthis, Afghanistan's Fatemiyoun, Pakistan's Zainabiyoun, and of course, Hamas, were armed to the teeth with those missiles. Extensive preparations were made so that, as the massacre of the Syrian people subsided, another war would be started on October 7, 2023, leading to the complete destruction of Gaza and the innocent people, children, and women who did not know that the Islamic Republic had filled all the tunnels beneath their feet with thousands of missiles and tens of thousands of light and heavy weapons. Mr. Biden, You have grievously wronged the nations of the Middle East. These days, the regime in Iran, in response to its security failures, such as the recent assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, and to intimidate the Iranian people, has engaged in widespread executions in prisons. Several innocent Sunni prisoners in Iran who have been imprisoned for over eight years in Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad are on the verge of execution, their sentences confirmed by the Supreme Court after being victimized by the Ministry of Intelligence's false cases. To prevent this injustice and evil, your administration and its European partners must impose heavy and comprehensive sanctions once and for all and lift them only on the condition of full compliance with human rights and the implementation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which this regime has accepted and ratified. Is it possible for a country to accept United Nations membership and commit itself to abide by its laws while being the biggest violator of human rights in practice? For humanity's sake, before the oppression of this regime leads to a destructive civil war like in Syria and creates other global crises, let's compel the regime to grant the rights of the people. Finally, the names of innocent prisoners in Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad who are at risk of execution are mentioned. Hoping for the establishment of peace, justice, and freedom throughout the world. Signatories:

Zoroaster Ahmadi Ragheb

Kaykhosrow Esmaeilpour

Abbas Akrami

Fahimeh Eilghami

Mitra Babak

Hassan Baqerinia

Babak Behzadi

Nima Bahrami

Rahim Bandouei

Diana Bigleri

Sha’leh Pakravan

Mehrdad Pushayi

Mohsen Taqizadeh

Kamal Jafari Yazdi

Khosrow Jafari

Negar Jokar

Sepideh Hejami

Mohammad Hassan Hasanzadeh

Gholamreza Hossein Bor

Mohammad Vali Heidarbeygi

Mohammadreza Khosravi

Noushin Khaje

Hamid Daneshvari

Mostafa Dehbashizadeh

Einollah Reza Zadeh Joibari

Ahmad Rahimi

Fatemeh Sepehri

Mohammad Hossein Sepehri

Ghasem Shaoleh Saadi

Mohammad Mahdi Shahbazifar

Raf’at Shahabi

Adel Sharifi

Fariborz Sarmi

Mohammad Reza Alipayam

Mansour Faraji

Ahad Ghorbani Dehnari

Ali Hossein Qolilu

Rasoul Kazemi

Malihe Karimadini

Faramarz Kalantari

Forough Kanani

Amir Labaf

Javad Lalmohammadi

Siran Mohammad Hosseini

Mohammad Mahdavifar

Abdolrasoul Mortazavi

Reza Mehregan

Sam Montazeri

Mahshid Nazemi

Abbas Vahidian Shahroudi

Names of prisoners at risk of execution:

Farhad Shakeri

Issa Eidmohammadi

Hakim Azim Gorgij

Abdulrahman Gorgij

Taj Mohammad Khormali

Malek Ali Fadai Nasab