We, the journalists, should refuse to accept dictatorship, be it in the form of the Crown and throne, religious garb or military uniform. We must firmly say "No". Journalist ought to reject arbitrariness and despotism under any guise,ideology or doctrine.

Dr. Shapur Bakthiar (1914-1991), the last prime minister under the last king of Iran, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (1919-1980), was a social democrat who opposed both the Shah's dictatorship and the fundamentalist rule introduced by Ayatollah Khomeini. One the leaders of the social democratic Iran Party and the Pro-Mossadeq National Front of Iran in 1978, Bakhtiar had been the deputy minister of Labor during the National Front government of Dr. Mohammad Mossadeq from 1951 to 1953. Although he was imprisoned several times during the Shah's reign, in January 1979, the Shah turned to him in a last desperate bid to save the monarchy from the fundamentalist revolutionaries. Bakhtiar accepted the Shah's nomination, because he believed that a successful transition to democracy required the restoration of the rule of law and democratic rights. While in office (January 3 to February 11, 1979), he dissolved the political police (SَAVAK), freed all political prisoners, granted freedom of the press, and abolished censorship. He warned the nation against the rise of a new dictatorship and urged Iranians to form political parties and trade unions and prepare for the elections. Bakhtiar' government was overthrown by a popular insurrection that brought Khomeini to power. Five months later he established himself in Paris from where he headed the National Movement of the Iranian Resistance, a political movement opposed to Iran's theocracy, which favored the establishment of a secular democracy in Iran. Dr. Bakhtiar was assassinated in his residence near Paris on August 6th, 1991 by agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The present text is the English version of Shapur Bakhtiar's address to the Iranian Parliament in which he outlined his government's emergency programs.