Iranian Activists, Nobel Laureates Call For Ceasefire With Israel, Islamic Republic to Step Down

 Iranian Activists, Nobel Laureates Call For Ceasefire With Israel, Islamic Republic to Step Down

The statement has received backlash from some Iranians, who said it legitimised Israel's unprovoked strikes on Iran.

Iranian Activists, Nobel Laureates Call For Ceasefire With Israel, Islamic Republic to Step Down

Mourners carry the flag-draped coffins of five men reportedly killed in Israeli strikes, during their funeral in Khorramabad, Iran on June 16, 2025. Photo: AP/PTI.

New Delhi: Days after Israel began its devastating air strikes across Iran, in which 224 people have reportedly been killed – and after Iran began its retaliatory strikes that have killed 14 in Israel – prominent Iranian activists, filmmakers and Nobel Laureates have urged for a ceasefire and the cessation of Iran’s uranium enrichment programme, and demanded Iran’s “authoritarian regime” to step down.

The statement, shared on the X handle of the jailed Iranian human rights activis t and Nobel Laureate Narges Mohammadi, has been signed by Cannes-winning filmmaker Jafar Panahi, Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi, filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof, Iranian lawyers Sadiqeh Vasmaghi and Abdolfattah Soltani, and Mohammadi herself.

Published an op-ed in the French daily Le Monde and in Persian on X, the statement calls for an “end to the devastating war between the Islamic Republic and the ruling regime in Israel – a war that not only destroys infrastructure and the lives of civilians in both territories but also poses a clear threat to the foundations of human civilisation.”

The statement asserts that uranium enrichment is against the interests of the Iranian population and serves nobody except the “ambitions of the Islamic Republic”.

“Iran and its people should not be sacrificed for uranium enrichment and the ambitions of the Islamic Republic,” it said.

The activists called upon the UN and the international community to compel Tehran to give up its uranium enrichment programme and force both sides to stop military attacks “on each other’s vital infrastructure, as well as to end the killing of civilians in both territories.”

Furthermore, the activists demanded an end to the Islamic Republic and suggested that it cannot resolve Iran’s internal and external conflicts. The “best path to save the people of Iran,” they said, “is the resignation of the Islamic Republic’s ruling establishment and the facilitation of a transition from the Islamic Republic to democracy.”

Some Iranians and commentators on politics in West Asia have questioned the statement’s timing and contents.

Journalist Mahsa Amrabadi, who was sentenced to two years in prison in Iran in 2009, noted that the statement makes no mention of who started the aggression and pins the blame on Iran.

“The logical conclusion of such a statement is to accept the legitimacy of the attack, especially when civilian infrastructure and lives of ordinary Iranians are being targeted,” she wrote, calling such statements agents of Israel’s hegemonic plans.

“I am ashamed to have once known signatories on this list, who essentially call for Iran to subjugate itself to the demands of the most violent and powerful empire in world history. They have chosen a side, and it is the side of death and annihilation,” wrote law professor and legal historian Nina Farnia.

“I have tremendous respect for Mohammadi and her co-signatories, but Iranian civil society leaders cannot in good conscience instrumentalise Israel’s attacks to accelerate the end of the Islamic Republic,” wrote Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.


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