“Iran Uprising - International Call for Release of Detainees” – 9th February 2018

London, 09 Feb - Lawmakers and political dignitaries from numerous European countries including Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Ireland, Portugal, Romania, Switzerland, Malta, and Poland participated in a conference named “Iran Uprising - International Call for Release of Detainees” on Friday 9th February.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) addressed the speakers and spoke about the changing circumstances in Iran. She said that the situation was changing for the better and spoke about four main issues.

Firstly, she said that the recent uprising in Iran was a turning point in the developments of the past few years. Mrs. Rajavi said that the conditions in Iran will never go back to the way they once were. In other words, the regime will not be able to oppress or suppress the people into silencing their discontent any longer. She said that the recent events in Iran were more than simply protests and demonstrations about the economy. Rather, it was a nationwide movement against the entirety of the clerical regime. The protest spread quickly to 140 cities across the country. Furthermore, the corruption within the leadership has exhausted all of the regime’s resources. The regime has no power to resolve any of the problems. Only serious political change can solve the severe social crisis in Iran. Mrs. Rajavi highlighted that the people were chanting “Death to Rouhani and to the reformists and the hardliners” showing that all of the regime was targeted.

Secondly, speaking about how the regime confronted the uprising, the leader of the Resistance said that once again the regime imposed repression like it has done in the past. It imposes many things on the people including a compulsory religion, the compulsory wearing of a veil, and so on. Mrs. Rajavi noted that the regime teaches and carried out practices that go against Islam. The role of women was discussed, and Mrs. Rajavi describe the women of Iran as an “explosive force” and one that the regime cannot cope with.

Mrs. Rajavi emphasised the Iranian Resistance is behind the people of Iran and is working towards an Iran where people can make their voice heard without fear of arrest, torture or execution. Fifty people have been killed, as far as we are aware, and at least 12 of them have been tortured to death. More than 8,000 people have been arrested for protesting. However, as hard as it may try, the regime does not have the power to stop the protests. It can clamp down on the people, but it cannot stop them from protesting and Mrs. Rajavi predicted that we will see more protests in the near future.

Mrs. Rajavi highlighted the role of the Iranian Resistance in guaranteeing peace, stability and security in Iran. She said that although the regime believes the Resistance is behind the uprising, it has in fact a much deeper role. It is the only chance of a democratic and free Iran and it has already offered plans and a structure for a future Iran. It is a viable alternative to the Iranian regime.

Finally, with regards to European policy on Iran, Mrs. Rajavi called on the European Union and its member states to adopt effective measures and binding decisions to ensure that the religious fascism ruling Iran frees the imprisoned protesters, guarantees freedom of speech and assembly, ends the suppression of women and abolishes the compulsory veil. She advised that all relations with Iran must be conditioned on an end to executions and suppression.

Martin Patzelt, a member of the German Bundestag’s Human Rights Committee, said that as representatives of the free world we have a responsibility to act and speak out against the atrocities happening in Iran. Europe needs to stay on the side of the Iranian people and not speak a dual language, he said. With regards to the people that are being tortured to death in Iran, Patzelt said that we should not remain indifferent. The Iranian regime’s policies have never been in favour of peace and stability because that would shake its foundations. Hence it is spending all the country’s money on supporting terrorist groups in the region.

Member of the Romanian Parliament, Romeo Nicoara, told the audience that we are living through a historical moment. He compared the current situation in Iran to what Romania went through three decades ago when the people protested against the regime. He said that the suppressive forces tried to stop them, but they could not manage. He has big hopes that the same result – democracy - will come soon to Iran.

Member of the Italian Parliament, Valeria Cardinali, focused on the plight of the women of Iran. She praised Mrs. Rajavi’s hard work and determination and said that she provides so much encouragement and hope. She said that Mrs. Rajavi and the other woman in the Resistance are showing the women of Iran that they can be strong and have a legitimate and equal place in society. Finally, she called on the whole of Europe to recognise the NCRI as a viable alternative to the Iranian regime.

Roger Lyons, former General Secretary of the largest union in Britain and former President of the Trade Union Congress, has participated in a number of rallies in London in the past few weeks and he declared his support for the Iranians who are calling on the British government to turn solidarity into meaningful actions. He praised the statement made on 3rd February by the International Trade Union Federation (ITUC) that called for the its 200 million affiliated members in 163 countries to take practical action in solidarity with the Iranian people. This, he said, is the strongest statement that calls for demonstrations at all Iranian embassies and delegations to the government in 163 countries. This, he hoped, will raise the level of solidarity to a new level.

He addressed Mrs. Rajavi, and the whole of the Resistance, saying that the uprising in Iran more than justifies all of the hard work that they are putting into bringing change to Iran. Pressure on individual governments is crucial and he said that in Britain they are calling on the UK government and the EU “to stop paying lip service” to the Iranian regime.

Member of the Italian Parliament, Elisabetta Zamparutti, also emphasised that now is a crucial moment of the Resistance because demonstrations are continuing despite the thousands of arrests and killings that are taking place.

Zamparutti expressed her astonishment of the regime’s massacre of human life and reminded the conference that the nature of the regime is still the same as it was in 1988 when the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners took place.

The regime does not recognise human rights or democracy and she gave this as one of the reasons why we need to support the Iranian Resistance, now more than ever. She also emphasised that Europe must factor human rights into all relations with Iran.

ANALYSIS: The ‘Salvador Option’ in Iraq to promote Iran’s sway

Tony Duheaume

Since the fall of Saddam Hussein, death squads have taken root in Iraq’s political core, and with the strengthening of Shiite militias by the Iranian regime, they have been used as a tool to inflict fear, to ensure that Iraq’s autocratic political body remains under Shiite control.

When Nouri Maliki’s Dawa Party came to power in Iraq in 2005 he had originally been appointed as vice-president for de-Baathification of the former Iraqi government and its military personnel. By April 2006, Maliki was installed as prime minister and with both the Americans and the Iranians looking on him as a politician they could easily influence, both were happy to back him during those early days.

Also read: Iraq declares ‘end of caliphate’ after capture of historic Mosul mosque

As Maliki’s grip strengthened, his agenda for a Shiite dominated Iraq firmly took root, and it soon became apparent that the only future for Iraq under his divisive rule, came in the form of an Iranian satellite state. As he grew in stature, the Iranian regime’s plans for hegemonic control of Iraq began to take hold, and with the use of their subservient puppet in Baghdad; Shiite militias under their control began to wreak havoc across the country in the form of death squads.

Maliki’s marginalization of Sunnis had been an integral part of his premiership, while hitting back at so-called al-Qaeda terror groups that had been causing havoc in Iraq before the advent of ISIS, some of which had been attributed to “false flag” operations from other quarters. Maliki cracked down on any form of dissent in Sunni communities, where voices had been raised against his sectarian policies.

With many Shiite militia members serving in both the armed forces and the police force, Maliki used them to do his personal bidding, and running in line with a continuing violent program of de-Baathification. He used torture and extrajudicial execution to eradicate any sign of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist regime from the country, as well as marginalize Sunnis from political office.

Network of secret prisons

During his term in office, Maliki consolidated his powerbase and effectively took political control of the judiciary. He used a network of secret prisons, controlled by the interior ministry and used by the Special Police Commanders as places of confinement. Sunni kidnap victims would be taken there to be interrogated, using the vilest forms of torture known.

The first sign of death squads operating in Iraq became fully apparent in May 2005, when dozens of bodies began to turn up around Baghdad. But the irony of this whole situation, came about when it was exposed in the US press, of how during 2005, the Pentagon was so desperate to get on top of the rising Sunni insurgency.

Also read: Despite political skills, Maliki fails to heal Iraq’s wounds

It trained groups of Iraqi Shiite militias to carry out “irregular missions” on behalf of US forces, in what was dubbed as the “Salvador option”. The Salvador option was named after counter-insurgency techniques used in Latin America during the 1980s.

These techniques were carried out by American-trained death squads, and were used to terrorise the population of El Salvador into submission, and to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathisers, who opposed US-backed despotic right-wing government.

New sanctions show US sides with Iranian people, not the regime

Last week, the “Countering Iran’s Destabilizing Activities Act of 2017" received a rare and near unanimous bipartisan vote in Congress. The legislation placed more sanctions on the Iranian regime. It called for extending terrorism-related sanctions on the notorious Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC), Iran’s violators of human rights and its missile program, which is increasingly threatening world peace. It was signed into law earlier Wednesday.

This coincided with the second anniversary of the Iran nuclear deal. President Donald Trump has appointed a team in the White House to figure out how to deal with the agreement, but his administration has also correctly pointed out that the broader implications of that deal have by no means been positive.

Critics of the Obama administration’s conciliatory Iran policy understood that when sanctions relief was narrowly focused on the nuclear issue, Iran would be emboldened in other areas. They were right. Today, the regime is escalating its nefarious activities in the region, even carrying out several illicit ballistic missile tests in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

In contrast to the dictatorship, the Iranian people are overwhelmingly educated, pro-democracy and seek to live in coexistence with the outside world. Understandably, they have a keen awareness when it comes to the threats presented by the regime.

The opening to the regime by the West was illusory, as President Hassan Rouhani will not oversee a period of "moderation" in Tehran. Western policymakers should take into account the Iranian people when designing Iran policy and look at the organized opposition, which is ready and capable to change the regime from within.

Had any Western executive body wanted the input of progressively-minded Iranians, they could have visited Paris on July 1 to hear from what a speaker described as approximately 100,000 of them at the international gathering for Free Iran.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) President-elect Maryam Rajavi applauded the international community in her speech for beginning to turn away from the conciliatory policies that had been adopted in the run-up to the nuclear agreement. Rajavi urged the U.S. and the rest of the world to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization, ousting it from regional conflicts and pursuing human rights charges against Iranian officials who participated in a massacre of 30,000 political prisoners, mainly the activists of the main opposition Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) in 1988.

The recent congressional consensus on Iran addresses many of such demands, i.e., subjecting the IRGC to terrorism-related sanctions, imposing additional missile sanctions and subjecting human rights violators to sanctions. The congressional language needs to be followed up by the administrations to do the following:

First, all the key entities and commanders of the IRGC and its affiliated groups need to be identified and subject to the sanctions under executive order 13224. Second, the IRGC and its affiliates must be expelled from the region, particularly Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

Third, the list of rights violators must include all the key elements who ordered, facilitated and carried out the massacre of 1988. Finally, the organized opposition, which has been the main victims of repression, as well as the best hope for change, should be heard and their rights recognized to make a free Iran a reality.

If similar measures had been undertaken when the 2009 uprisings occurred, the show of international support very likely would have bolstered efforts to oust the clerical regime and establish a democracy in line with the secular and democratic principles long advocated by the NCRI.

The Free Iran rally exuded the promise that change in Iran is within reach. Several thousand protest actions have been recorded throughout Iran over the past year, even as the regime’s domestic crackdowns have escalated. The simmering resentment toward the regime is growing ever closer to spilling over into another mass uprising.

When the Trump administration is finished evaluating its post-nuclear deal policy on Iran, it would be a sharp departure from the past if these new realities on the ground are taken into consideration. It is time to recognize the right of the people for a free, non-nuclear and secular republic in Iran. 

Soona Samsami is the representative in the United States for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which seeks the establishment of a democratic, secular and non-nuclear republic in Iran.

MEK/PMOI GAINS SUPPORT WHILE IRANIAN REGIME GETS WEAKER

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by Poorang Novak

The justice-seeking movement that wants the Iranian regime to be punished for the horrific massacre of MEK/PMOI members is gaining momentum, just weeks after the opposition’s event in Paris. On 1st July, tens of thousands of people attended the Free Iran rally and hundreds of former US and European government officials and prominent political figures spoke about the need for justice for the MEK/PMOI members who were killed during the 1988 massacre.

The Iranian regime is at an extremely low point. In the days before the grand gathering, Foreign Minister of Iran Javad Zarif went to Paris to try to stop the event from taking place. He was unable to manage this.

Not long later, Supreme Leader Khamenei sent his adviser Kamal Kharrazi to the French capital to declare that the MEK/PMOI is a “terrorist group” that has been involved in the murder of “thousands of ordinary citizens in Iran”. This is clearly an attempt to smear the MEK/PMOI’s solid reputation and to counter the increasing amount of support it is getting.

Kharrazi has been involved in activities that aim to badmouth the MEK/PMOI in the past. There was an alarming criminal conspiracy against the Resistance and the MEK/PMOI that resulted in the June 17, 2003 dossier that was a failure for the Iranian regime and its co-conspirators. The file was closed by the French authorities and the MEK/PMOI’s reputation was enhanced as a result.

The MEK/PMOI has been calling for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to be designated a foreign terror organisation. In retaliation, the Iranian regime has been fabricating files to use against the MEK/PMOI so that French authorities will change their opinion. Many other fabrications have taken place over the past ten years. It is the regime’s attempt to wage psychological warfare against the MEK/PMOI.

In 2005, it was revealed by a French lawyer that the Iranian regime wanted to blame the MEK/PMOI for the Halabja chemical attack that killed and injured thousands of Kurds at the end of the Iran-Iraq war. The regime was allegedly prepared to pay $100 million so the MEK/PMOI was implicated.

The Iranian regime, despite numerous attacks on the MEK/PMOI, has been unable to keep it down. The 1988 massacre which resulted in the death of more than 30,000 MEK/PMOI members and other such atrocities, that continue to this day, have not been able to dissuade people from resisting. The people want justice, freedom and democracy and they will not be stopped.

The MEK/PMOI was once listed as a terrorist organisation, but was understandably removed when it was properly understood that it has no terrorist links. However, this does not stop the regime from repeating the nonsense. Numerous officials, time and time again, try to make out like the MEK/PMOI carries out terrorist activities.

The MEK/PMOI is gaining more and more support, and an increasing number of important political figures are speaking out against the Iranian regime. At the recent rally in Paris, Senator Joseph Lieberman highlighted that Raqqa is not the capital of Islamic extremism and terrorism – it is in Tehran with the mullahs’ regime.

It is imperative for the Iranian regime to be held accountable for the crimes against humanity it has committed, but it is even more imperative that Iran sees regime change soon. A democratic alternative, a viable alternative, exists – the MEK/PMOI.