Sobh Media Festival: Where revolutionary truth meets global solidarity with Palestine

By Nahid Poureisa

The third edition of the Sobh International Media Festival, organized by the IRIB World Service, like the previous two editions, once again marked a sacred moment of solidarity with Palestine.

At a time when Western powers, along with complicit Arab states, are not merely turning their backs on one of the most brutal modern forms of white settler colonialism with its naked barbarity but actively funding and arming it, accelerating its ethnic cleansing with chilling urgency, the Islamic Republic of Iran continues to stand firmly with the people of Palestine.

Sobh Festival, as the Islamic Republic’s premier international media festival, ensures that the voices of the voiceless are heard loud and clear, and that the genocide is unmasked and condemned unequivocally.

The Iranian people, who have endured decades of hardship for their unwavering support of Palestine, know that their struggle will only be fulfilled when the holy land of Al-Quds becomes the rightful home of its indigenous people.

Since the 1979 anti-imperialist revolution in Iran, the lives of ordinary Iranians have been marked by endless conspiracies, coups, hybrid warfare, and sanctions. Each wave of aggression has devastated infrastructure, institutions, and countless lives.

Yet Iran has remained steadfast, firm in its defense of sovereignty, revolutionary values, and the liberation of the region from the boots of imperialist Yankees.

Only the Iranian nation could envision and bring to life the profound moment of Sobh – a dawn that pierces through falsehoods, offering the world a chance to awaken.

The Sobh Festival is an invitation to wash away the filth of Zionist propaganda with the clarity of revolutionary truth, inspired by the courage of a nation that refuses to bow to Western hegemony or its lackeys.

Sobh Festival has become one of the very few forums internationally where the voices of the voiceless are heard and amplified. This year’s edition of the festival was a major success.

This year’s edition of the media event was a rare breath of truth, and the cost of this breath has been paid through the blood of thousands of martyrs who offered their lives for a righteous cause, for truth and justice.

From workers to scientists, military personnel to cultural icons, every segment of Iranian society has sacrificed for the dream of an independent, sovereign nation.

Sobh Festival gathered the voices of real, independent media from around the world to raise awareness about the ongoing genocide of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and to condemn the criminal silence of the world.

This is what the media is meant to do: tell the truth. Clear the dust of lies. Tear through the propaganda funded by global tyrants.

The Sobh Festival gave space for the children of Gaza to be seen, to share their plight.

It has, over the past three years, proved itself to be journalism with a spine. Truth-telling without apology. A refusal to be misled, muted, or manipulated by neo-imperial Western powers.

Iran, a proud civilization, a cradle of poetry, philosophy, and resistance, has been unfairly maligned and dehumanized in global narratives.

In today’s upside-down world, child-killers are honored, and war criminals lead so-called democracies.

Meanwhile, the only state standing tall in its principled support for resistance has been portrayed in a bad light, just because it dares to speak for the oppressed and rejects the hegemony of the United States and its allies.

For once, international guests did not wear keffiyehs to conceal their identities. They didn’t expect tear gas, arrest, or revocation of a visa for participating in an event dedicated to Palestine. They came and spoke fearlessly about the Palestinian cause and the ongoing genocide.

Sobh Festival is a platform for truth to be recorded – for Hind Rajab to smile again.

Palestine is not just liberating itself – it is liberating all of us. It is not only genocide. It is not only ethnic cleansing backed by the West. Palestine is the last drop of humanity’s collective blood.

“What should we do after Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah?”

I heard that question again and again in hallways and gatherings during the festival. There was so much to share – names and stories of martyrs, memories from the eight-year Sacred Defense, the literature of resistance, and the road ahead.

The conversations were raw, unfiltered, and fearless. That is the legacy of the Sobh Festival, and this festival is expected to only grow bigger and better in the years to come.

It is the sunrise of Palestine in the media world. It is a refusal to fear the darkness of Zionism. It is the imagining of a world freed from barbarism – a world that still dares to hope.

I think back to last year, when the Sobh Festival coincided with the martyrdom of Iran’s beloved president and foreign minister in a helicopter crash.

That time, international Sobh guests witnessed history – millions of Iranians flooding the streets, declaring to the world: Iran is here to stay. They had the rare privilege of witnessing the living, breathing power of this nation.

And yes, the privilege of providing this global media platform for the voiceless belongs to Iran.

Nahid Poureisa is an Iranian analyst and academic researcher.

(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV.

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