Tributes to Organizers of Iran’s Resistance Theater Festival

The fourth Isar (sacrifice) celebration was held on Tuesday concurrent with the anniversary of freedom of Iranian prisoners of war, who were captivated during the bitter Iran-Iraq war (1980-88).

Ministers of culture and Islamic guidance and defense Ali Janati and Hossein Dehghan respectively paid tribute to Mehdi Shafie, Hossein Mosafer-Astaneh, Homayoun Qanavati and other organizers of the Ninth Resistance Theater Festival to commemorate Liberation of Khorramshahr.  

Culture minister stressed that the Islamic system should use all the existing capabilities to picture the resistance and sacrifice of these messengers of the revolution who were key for the guidance of the next generation and the world’s freedom-seekers, irantheater.ir reported.

Mr Janati, who attended the ceremony at the movie theater of the armed forces with the defense minister, said that a free person was the best word for these prisoners of war who did sacrifice for eight years.  They mixed the contemporary history with the true meaning of sacrifice

What the nation had repeatedly witnessed, heard and tried over the past four decades was their generosity, martyrdom of members of their families and their disabilities, he said and added that all of these people were symbols of sacrifice for the homeland and religion.

“All of these are symbols of sacrifice, which has turned into a borderless and timeless culture -- respected and beautiful -- that can be etched in the history of mankind,” Mr Janati said.  

“What we have seen in the sacred defense was an enemy, which was armed to the teeth and supported by all the world powers but the religious nation volunteered to fight against them. They did not backtrack until they defeated the enemy.

“If we had forgotten the revolutionary spirit, the country would definitely had suffered a defeat from the enemy,” he said.

Mr Jannati said that the ministry was proud of supporting publishing of thousands of books on the literature of resistance and producing hundreds of movies.

He added that 28 movies and tens of plays had been produced over the past two years to picture the sacrifices of those who fought in the bitter Iran-Iraq war.

Also, brigadier Dehghan also delivered speech at the ceremony to pay tribute to the martyrs, prisoners of war and the war disabled.

The top figures of different cultural and artistic fields were awarded.

Two pieces of monologues were performed with the direction of Amir-Hossein Shafie and pieces of music were played by Alireza Ghorbani.