Manouchehr Bakhtiari Writes Open Letter to President Trump

Manouchehr Bakhtiari, the father of slain protestor Pouya Bakhtiari, writes to President Donald Trump with a direct appeal to stand with the Iranian people, not with those who advocate minor reforms to the current regime. Bakhtiari wrote the letter, which applauds the moral clarity of President Trump’s first term, following a recent State Department Persian-language post praising a former regime insider.

Mr. Bakhtiari wrote and published the letter independently. The following is a translation by NUFDI.

Dear Mr. President, My name is Manouchehr Bakhtiari, father of Pouya Bakhtiari, a young man killed by the bullets of the Islamic Republic in November 2019, who was guilty only of crying out for freedom. From that day on, my life, and the lives of thousands of other families, split into two parts: prior to November 2019 and after November 2019. They took my son from me, but not his voice. In those dark days, you and your advisors heard our cries. The world learned through your words that in Iran, innocent people were being gunned down while a merciless regime stood over their blood. But today, with bitterness and disbelief, I see the U.S. State Department supporting figures who themselves were part of that same regime and its machinery of repression, people who for years helped turn the wheel of injustice alongside the leaders of the Islamic Republic. President Trump, the so-called reformists and hardliners are merely two names for one power, the power that has imprisoned justice and fired bullets at freedom. No one within this system will reform it, just as a killer cannot become a judge. Supporting such figures is an insult to the blood of the young victims of November 2019, to the tears of their mothers, and the wounds of fathers still breathing in exile and in prison. I was released from prison only to be banished to a city where even the sun seems exiled in dust: Bandar Abbas. Yet I still stand, because I believe that justice will one day rise from this very soil. Mr. Trump, I am not asking you to interfere in Iran’s internal affairs. I only ask that you distinguish truth from falsehood, that you do not mistake the victim for the oppressor. The world must stand with the people of Iran, not with those who have long been partners in their suffering. If the day comes when a fair court is established, we expect every perpetrator and commander of every faction and rank to be held accountable before the people, without exception. I am the father of Pouya, a father who turned a bullet into a cry. And until my last breath, I will remain the voice of my son and of all the children of Iran. With respect, and with pain, Manouchehr Bakhtiari Father of the martyred Pouya Bakhtiari One of the grieving fathers of November 2019