Fear of Convergence: Shifting Responsibility for Repression and Organised Attacks on Prince Reza Pahlavi
S. Rouzbeh
۱۴۰۴/۱۱/۲۰

S. Rouzbeh argues that blaming calls for civil action for the human cost of repression shifts responsibility from those who order and carry out violence, undermines the right to peaceful assembly and weakens national unity. The article calls for criticism to focus on strategy while holding perpetrators of repression accountable.

S. Rouzbeh – In the midst of the Iranian nation’s decisive struggle to reclaim its homeland, one of the most dangerous shifts in the realm of narratives is under way: a shift that could be called ‘the inversion of the logic of responsibility’. In recent weeks, as Reza Pahlavi’s social influence at gatherings and in international statements has become more prominent, and as people have responded in large numbers—both inside and outside the country—some parts of the media and social media have sought to make the human cost of repression the responsibility not of those who order and carry out the violence, but of those calling for civil action.

A clear example of this pattern can be seen on the ‘Tribune Zamaneh’ platform, where articles such as ‘How They Knowingly Sent the People of Iran to the Slaughterhouse’ (published on 14 Bahman 1404) explicitly use the phrase ‘sent to the slaughterhouse’, lifting the burden of the crime from the shoulders of the repressor and placing it on those who issued the call.

Although Radio Zamaneh stresses that the material in this section does not represent the outlet’s official policy and is contributed by users, the repeated appearance of such articles, with headlines such as ‘The Illusion of Collapse, the Reality of Massacre: How Futile Interventions Sent the People’s Protests to the Slaughterhouse’ or ‘The Massacre of Dey 1404: The Treachery of Reza Pahlavi and Donald Trump…’, points to the emergence of a distinct current of thought—a current that mistakes political analysis for a ‘show trial’. This approach is not strategic criticism, but a grave legal fallacy that, whether knowingly or unknowingly, switches the positions of killer and victim in the eyes of the public.

To refute this fallacy, we must first turn to the legal foundation of responsibility. Under international law, criminal and human-rights responsibility is directly tied to the ‘power to use violence’. Article 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights recognises peaceful assembly as a fundamental right, and the UN Human Rights Committee’s General Comment No. 37 makes clear that states are obliged to respect, protect and facilitate such assemblies. Under these instruments, responsibility for any violent confrontation lies exclusively with the governing structure and the forces that use force. For readers living in Europe, Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights reiterate the same principle: ‘calling for civil action’ is a right, and a crime occurs when the authorities respond to that right with guns and torture. Shifting this boundary—transferring the burden of the crime from the shooter to the protester—is, in effect, a final blow to the concept of the right to self-defence.

This fallacy is also pursued through inverted framing in multimedia spaces and on platforms such as YouTube. Videos with misleading titles such as ‘Who Is Accountable for the People’s Blood? Khamenei, Reza Pahlavi or Trump?’ effectively place the name of an opposition activist alongside that of the principal authority behind the repression, in order to imply an equivalence in guilt. In some more inflammatory content, unsupported claims such as ‘Reza Pahlavi was involved in the Dey massacre and must be tried’ are stated explicitly. These framings, alongside waves of posts on the social network X, serve precisely the aim the Islamic Republic has always pursued: turning demands for change into a ‘crime’ and presenting the repressor as an ‘inevitable reality’.

The political consequences of this shift in responsibility go beyond the character assassination of one individual; it serves to paralyse society’s will, since every act of civic engagement and every call to protest is met in advance with the label ‘responsible for the bloodshed’. Ultimately, this erodes national convergence, turning the arena for competing programmes and alternatives into a war of baseless accusations. Where is the line between legitimate criticism and unfounded accusation? Criticism is constructive when it addresses strategy, the timing of a call to action and the transparency of a road map—not when it uses the language of security to call a political activist a ‘traitor’ or a ‘killer’.

In conclusion, the debate today is not about defending one person, but about defending the ‘rationality of responsibility’. If society accepts that a call for civil action amounts to complicity in a crime, then tomorrow no civil movement and no collective action will be able to survive. National convergence can endure only when criticism is free, but the killer remains in the place where they belong: the one who gives the order, the one who fires, and the one who has made imprisonment and execution instruments of their survival. Safeguarding this legal and ethical principle is the only way to counter a game designed to wear down hope and the national will. The issue today is safeguarding the national will for change. The Islamic Republic benefits from division and the shifting of responsibility.

Source: https://srouzbeh.com/en/posts/archive-f1225473-d0bd-dcf2-dea8-5bd7ab31c00c
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