Hamid Taqvaee
16 February 2026
The fortieth-day memorial ceremonies for our loved ones on 17–18 February 2026 can become a renewed offensive against the regime of massacre and slaughter. The Worker-communist Party, together with the Communist Party of Iran, declared in a statement on 13 February entitled “In memory of our fallen on 17 and 18 February: let us stop work and honour our loved ones” that people should down tools and participate widely in the fortieth-day commemorations. The statement declared that by holding ever larger and more magnificent ceremonies, we must “show that there is no place for this regime and its criminals in this country. We must demand the immediate release of the detainees and show that, hand in hand, united and resolute, we stand until the end.”
Now, the Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations has issued a statement entitled “For the empty desks, for the unfinished dreams,” calling for a day of public mourning and strike on Wednesday 18 February 2026, urging all teachers and students to refrain from attending schools. Student organisations and collectives in 28 universities have also called for a general strike on 17–18 February. A similar call has been issued by the nationwide network of the Woman, Life, Freedom revolution. Thus, the memorial ceremonies for the fallen on 17–18 February are moving towards becoming a broad protest movement against the ruling murderers.
One important aspect of these calls, going beyond the fortieth-day ceremonies themselves, is society’s entry into the arena of strikes. In a previous note entitled “Let us bring the wheels to a halt,” I stressed the importance of strikes at a time when the regime has turned the streets into a bloodbath and effectively imposed martial law. The current calls to stop work may be the first step in that direction.
Under present conditions, a strike is an effective and practical form of protest against one of the most horrific massacres in contemporary history. Yet the issue goes beyond whether this form of struggle is possible or practical. This is not a strike in the conventional sense, aimed at achieving a specific demand under normal circumstances. Rather, it is a suspension of ordinary life and normal relations — a collective and civil confrontation with the normalisation of a society drenched in blood.
If students refuse to sit exams, if teachers declare that they cannot enter classrooms with empty desks, if teachers and students choose the fortieth-day commemorations and memorial ceremonies for the victims of the January massacre as the occasion to call a strike, and if they combine the strike with public mourning — all this signifies a form of public outrage seeking to halt the machinery of society and prevent a return to “normal” conditions.
This is collective mourning in the form of accumulated anger and hatred in the hearts of millions who have lost their loved ones. A mourning filled with rage and rebellion — one that makes no specific demands of the ruling criminals but is determined to overthrow their rule. It is the cry of a grieving society declaring: we will not allow you to slaughter tens of thousands of people in the space of two days and pretend that nothing has happened! Pretend that everything is normal!
It declares that a return to the pre-January situation is impossible. It declares that this massacre can and must lead only to the downfall of the ruling criminals and their trial — nothing less. This is the only path back to normal life.
This is our judgement and our message — we, the people who stop work during the fortieth-day ceremonies of our loved ones and confront their killers by halting ordinary life.
