The 12th Congress of the Worker-communist Party of Iran (WPI) was held online from December 3rd to December 5th, 2021. The Congress began with the playing of the Internationale and by observing a minute’s silence in memory of those lost in the cause of freedom and socialism, in memory of the six dear comrades we lost between the two congresses: Bibihel, one of the oldest members of the party and Maryam Jabbarzadeh, one of the youngest, Behrooz Mehrabadi, Nazanin Boroumand, Farideh Arman and Faraz Azadi, from the party’s Central Committee, and in dear memory of Mansoor Hekmat.
In his opening speech, Hamid Taqvaee, the Party Leader, talked about the specificities of the 12th Congress and its political and social place. He said this gathering is the congress of a society that has risen up and is determined to pull down the Islamic Republic and achieve complete freedom, equality and prosperity.
Following Hamid Taqvaee’s speech, four prominent women personalities of the party, Mina Ahadi, Shirin Shams, Shahla Daneshfar and Shiva Mahbobi, gave short speeches.
Th 12th Congress was different from previous party congresses in many ways. Holding the congress online and broadcasting it live on the party’s 24-hour New Channel TV and via several social media platforms made it possible to establish a two-way relationship between the congress and the people, and the people with the congress. Numerous messages were received from viewers during the Congress, some of which were read out.
In addition to the delegates and a significant number of party members, the Congress was attended by guests from different political and linguistic backgrounds. 350 people responded positively to the party’s invitation to attend the Congress, who attended at different times, and a number of those who were unable to enter the room, followed the Congress via social media platforms. The Congress proceedings were translated by the translation team for English and Arabic-speaking guests.
Delegations from a number of Iranian, Iraqi and Afghan parties and organisations also attended the Congress, and messages were delivered to the Congress by their representatives: Worker-communist Party of Iran-Hekmatist, Communist Party of Iran, Left Worker-communist Party of Iraq, Afghanistan Socialist Workers’ Organisation, President of the General Federation of Workers’ and Employees’ Unions of Iraq, the Communist Alternative in Iraq, the Democratic Front of Iran, the Real Democracy Movement, and the NGO Voice of the People of Iran.
Unfortunately, due to time constraints, it was not possible to read out the last two messages in the Congress, but the written text of all received messages will be published.
Following the messages by parties and organisations, the Standing Rules of the Congress were approved, and then Asqar Karimi, Head of the Executive Board, Mostafa Sabber, Head of the Political Bureau and Kian Azar, Secretary of the Youth Organisation, spoke.
The next section of the congress was devoted to the report of the officials, where the reports of 25 departments and functions of the party were presented. This was followed by the discussion of the reports and the party’s activities by the Congress delegates. On each day of the three-day congress, some time was allocated to the guests and their input.
A particular feature of the 12th Congress was the type of documents that were submitted to the Congress. The Congress passed one resolution and 26 motions. These documents cover various areas of the current struggles in Iran, from workers’ strikes and protests to the women’s rights movement, the movement against the death penalty, to the teachers’ and retirees’ protests, the justice movement for the victims of the regime, the LGBTQ protests, the campaign for a world boycott of the regime, the fight against environmental degradation, people’s movement for the overthrow of the regime, and so on. These documents also dealt with acute issues affecting the people, such as the bankruptcy of the state and economic misery, the rule and intrusion of religion in people’s lives, addiction, religion-sanctioned rape of children, torture, forced confessions, the barbaric Islamic judicial system, honour killings, etc., as well as addressing workers and disadvantaged sections of society, such as the slumdwellers, cross-border porters and fuel couriers, Afghan migrants and refugees, asylum seekers and the disabled. The substance of the motions was predominantly to condemn the crimes and inhumane policies of the regime, to defend the struggles and protests of different sections of society, and to declare support for the struggles of the people.
In the intervals between the agenda items, the messages of the Congress to the people of Iran, to workers, to women, to justice-seeking families of the victims of the regime, to Iranian Writers’ Association and to the people of Afghanistan were read out in Farsi, and the message to the people of the world was read out in both Farsi and English.
An exhilarating section of the congress was the reading out of numerous messages to the Congress from dozens of worker activists from Iran, from the oil and steel industries, Haft Tappeh sugarcane workers, and from other industrial centres, as well as from various groups of teachers and retirees, from the youth, from the justice-seeking families of those killed by the regime, from medical personnel, and from other sections of the population. New messages were also being continuously received during the Congress, some of which were read out. The full text of these messages will also be published.
In the elections section of the Congress, 62 people were elected to the Central Committee: Davood Aram, Taha Azadi, Payam Azar, Kian Azar, Siavash Azari, Mohsen Ebrahimi, Mina Ahadi, Abdollah Asadi, Gholam Akbari, Behrooz Bahari, Siamak Bahari, Sima Bahari, Shahab Bahrami, Fateh Bahrami, Mina Behroozi, Azar Pouya, Parisa Pouyandeh, Hamid Taqvaee, Amir Tavakkoli, Keyvan Javid, Jalil Jalili, Taha Hosseini, Soheila Dalvand, Shahla Daneshfar, Mitra Daneshi, Patty Debonitas, Milad Resaeimanesh, Iraj Rezaei, Hormoz Raha, Siamak Zareh, Bahram Soroush, Hoshiar Soroush, Soleyman Sigarchi, Karim Shamohammadi, Esam Shoukry, Mohammad Shokoohi, Shirin Shams, Mostafa Sabber, Susan Saberi, Tahmineh Sadeghi, Hassan Salehi, Meysam Atiq, Jamil Farzan, Nasser Kashkooli, Mohammad Amin Kamangar, Asqar Karimi, Khalil Keyvan, Abdol Golparian, Azizeh Lotfollahi, Abbas Mandegar, Shiva Mahbobi, Mehran Mahbobi, Navid Mohammadi, Yadi Mahmoodi, Siavash Modarresi, Reza Moradi, Jamileh Miraki, Nassan Nodinian, Samir Noory, Kazem Nik-khah, Rahim Yazdanparast and Babak Yazdi.
The Congress ended, in a vibrant and lively atmosphere, with the closing speech of Hamid Taqvaee, who stressed that “the experience of the three days of the Congress showed that this was in fact a gathering of the party and a society that has risen up”.
In the first meeting of the Central Committee, which was held immediately after the Congress, Hamid Taqvaee was elected as the Secretary of the Central Committee (Party Leader) and 27 people were elected as members of the Political Bureau: Kian Azar, Mohsen Ebrahimi, Mina Ahadi, Abdollah Asadi, Behrooz Bahari, Siamak Bahari, Sima Bahari, Shahab Bahrami, Fateh Bahrami, Azar Pouya, Amir Tavakkoli, Keyvan Javid, Shahla Daneshfar, Bahram Soroush, Mohammad Shokoohi, Shirin Shams, Mostafa Sabber, Hassan Salehi, Jamil Farzan, Asqar Karimi, Khalil Keyvan, Abdol Golparian, Shiva Mahbobi, Nassan Nodinian, Samir Nouri, Kazem Nik-khah and Babak Yazdi.
Worker-communist Party of Iran (WPI)
8 December 2021
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