CODEPINK’s co-founder Medea Benjamin was forcibly escorted out of the Hudson Institute yesterday, Wednesday, September 19, after disrupting warhawk Brian Hook, U.S. Special Envoy to Iran and head of Trump’s Iran Action Group. Watch the video from C-Span!
Medea's protest against Hook’s belligerent speech and the administration’s harsh sanctions struck a chord with people in Iran --CODEPINK has been inundated via email and Instagram with messages from ordinary Iranians expressing their thanks and echoing the call for peace. “The messages from Iranians keep pouring in and are so beautiful,” said Benjamin. “People in both countries want to live in peace. We have to stop the Trump administration from dragging us into another unjustified, unwinnable, catastrophic conflict.”
Medea has also published the book Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran, chronicling the history of US intervention that led to the Islamic Republic.
Join our campaign to create awareness about the importance of maintaining peace with Iran!
Take action below, or contact Lily Tajaddini, CODEPINK Iran Campaign Manager: [email protected] | 240 498-4218
TAKE ACTION
Tweet your message of support for the Iran Peace Deal.
Share our images on Facebook to spread the word.
Create and share video messages of support for Iranians.
Sign the petition apologizing to the people of Iran for Trump's actions.
Sample Tweets
Retweet your support for peace with Iran by clicking on the following Tweets/images below:
To keep the action going, join our social ambassador team and you’ll get an email 2–3 times a week with more twitter actions.
We want to make sure we send a clear message to the Trump Administration about peace with Iran.
Use either of these messages below. Just copy the text and go to Facebook to post it, or click the links. If you want to have a bigger impact download the images and share those too.
You can also click the images below to download PDF versions that can be printed. Hold them up, and photograph/video yourself or your friends with messages of solidarity and post on Facebook!
Message 1:
Special Envoy to Iran, Brian Hook, made some hawkish comments about Iran this morning. But his war mongering doesn't represent the American people. We want #PeaceWithIran.
Click here to like or share this!
Message 2:
Medea Benjamin disrupted the US State Department's Special Envoy to Iran, Brian Hook, whose aggressive policies could lead to a war with Iran. We must take action against these war hawks before it's too late! Click here to like or share this!
Create and Share Video Messages of Support
Record a message of peace to the Iranian people and upload it onto Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter using our hashtag #peacewithIran. Use our sample script to practice a phrase in Persian, or feel free to make up your own message.
Find out how to create these videos here!
Sign the Petition
These are indeed terrifying times. Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear agreement is reckless, baseless and dangerous. We cannot allow him to take us down the path towards war with Iran. Join Jane Fonda, Oliver Stone, Danny Glover, Noam Chomsky, Vijay Prashad, Eve Ensler, Mike Farrell, Frances Fisher, Shiva Rose, Matthew Modine, UPPJ, IPS, World Beyond War, Voices for Non Violence and more in reaching out to the Iranian people with an apology for our president’s unscrupulous behavior and a pledge to try to reverse this decision. We will publicize this “Apology to the Iranian People” via social media and publications inside Iran.
You can sign anonymously or publicly:
Open Letter to the People of Iran from the American People
Dear Friends,
We, the undersigned, apologize for Donald Trump’s reckless, baseless, and dangerous decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear agreement and we pledge to do everything we can to reverse that decision.
We are ashamed that our government has broken an agreement that was already signed not just by the United States and Iran, but also by France, Britain, Germany, Russia and China, and then approved by the entire UN Security Council in a unanimous vote. We are ashamed that our government has broken a deal that was working, a deal with which Iran was complying, a deal that was making our entire world safer and could have moved our nations closer towards the path of friendship.
Unlike our president, we believe that a deal is a deal. Unlike our president, we want to resolve the conflicts in the Middle East, not escalate them. Unlike our president, we want our nation’s resources to be dedicated to enriching people’s lives, not enriching the weapons makers. Unlike our president, we want to live in peace and harmony with the people of Iran.
We understand that our nation already has a dreadful history of meddling in the internal affairs of your country. The 1953 coup that overthrew your democratically elected government was unconscionable. So was US support for Iraq’s Saddam Hussein when he invaded Iran in 1980, including selling him material for making chemical weapons that were used against you. The 1988 shooting down of an Iranian civilian airliner, killing all 290 passengers and crew, was unconscionable. So, too, are the decades of covert actions to overthrow your government and the decades of sanctions that have brought such needless suffering to ordinary Iranians.
We understand that the US government has no business interfering in your internal affairs or in the Middle East in general. We should not be selling weapons to nations guilty of gross human rights violations or sending our military to fight in faraway lands. With all the flaws in our own society--from massive inequality and racism to a political system corrupted by monetary influences--we should clean up our own house instead of telling others how to govern themselves.
We will do everything in our power to stop Donald Trump from strangling your economy and taking us to war with you. We will ask the UN to sanction the United States for violating the nuclear agreement. We will urge the Europeans, Russians, and Chinese to keep the deal alive and increase their trade relations. And we will work to rid ourselves of this unscrupulous president and replace him with someone who is trustworthy, moral, and committed to diplomacy.
Please accept our hand in friendship. May the peacemakers prevail over those who sow hatred and discord.
Sincerely,