MARYAM RAJAVI: FOR FREEDOM, FROM MOSADDEGH TO JANUARY 2018 UPRISING CATEGORIES // Messages

Mosaddegh’s tenure was a unique example of a government that defended its people’s rights and national interests, was devoid of corruption and tyranny, and was especially characterized an unwavering struggle for national freedom and independence

On the anniversary of the demise of Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh, leader of Iran’s Nationalist Movement, on March 15, 1967, we salute his exalted soul and renew our pledge to continue and advance his path for the happiness of the Iranian nation.

Mosaddegh became an acclaimed international icon for taking bold action to nationalize Iran’s Oil Industry on March 20, 1952, an unforgettable landmark in Iran’s history. By leading this struggle, Mosaddegh became a great teacher of patriotism and an unwavering struggle for independence for Iranian people and nations of the Middle East.

In the first year after he seized power, Khomeini said, “Our path is not the path of oil… Oil nationalization is not an issue for us. It is wrong… to set Islam aside and praise someone who has nationalized the oil.”

Khomeini and his heirs thus established a dreadful dictatorship instead of democracy and freedom which the people of Iran aspired for. They also squandered the country’s oil and put it on sale.

Khomeini and his heirs resent Mosaddegh not only for his brilliant victory in nationalizing the oil, but for the valuable steps he took to put an end to despotism, corruption and poverty and bring democracy to the various realms of life in Iran. He threaded a road which was totally different from those of the Shah and Khomeini.

The pleasant memory of Mosaddegh’s brief tenure has remained in the nation’s mind since he promoted a nationalist and democratic program which was very progressive in his time.

The popular uprising on July 21, 1952, helped him pass his nine-point plan in the parliament. The plan enabled Mosaddegh to balance Iran’s foreign trade-- an unprecedented phenomenon in Iran’s history-- despite cessation of oil revenues, through imposing severe control on imports and reducing public expenses. He also managed to balance the country’s domestic budget.

For the first and last time in Iran’s history, Mosaddegh succeeded to relieve the country’s reliance on oil revenues for income. His administration introduced a range of progressive social, financial, administrative and political reforms despite tough opposition. He initiated extensive reforms in the Army, in health and education, in the judiciary and legal proceedings, and annulled the special and extraordinary courts.

Mosaddegh introduced reforms based on which landowners had to turn over 10 per cent of their revenues to their tenants. According to the new land reforms, the lands owned by the government were divided into small pieces and sold to the public to build their own housing, as a result of which house rent was lowered for low income families.

Mosaddegh was in office for only 28 months but his brief tenure was a unique example of a government that defended its people’s rights and national interests, was devoid of corruption and tyranny, and was especially characterized by an unwavering struggle for national freedom and independence.

As Massoud Rajavi once reiterated, “Mosaddegh was not an individual but represented a cause. He was targeted from all directions for his cause which cherished independence, freedom, and an unwavering struggle against foreign colonialism, and against domestic dictatorship and fundamentalism.”

The Shah’s path characterized by authoritarianism and dependence on foreign powers failed. The path of religious tyranny also failed.

Inspired by Mosaddegh and the Mojahedin (PMOI), Iran’s young generations have risen up today in dozens of cities across the country. They have a big question: Why doesn’t Iran have a democratic government despite its rich and progressive culture and despite abundant material and human resources?

This is the fundamental question that has made Iran’s people restless in achieving freedom, democracy and equality.

Mosaddegh said, “I will struggle to the last breath for freedom and independence of this country.”

We also pledge to continue the fight for the overthrow of the clerical dictatorship and not relent until the aspirations of our nation for a free, prosperous land free from all forms of discrimination are realized.

MARTYRDOM OF GHOBAD AZAMI, DETAINEE OF THE UPRISING, UNDER TORTURE

The henchmen of religious fascism ruling Iran tortured Ghobad Azami to death, and the number of the victims of the detained protestors killed in the detention centers reaches to at least 14 people. Ghobad Azami, from Javanrood, Kermanshah province, was arrested on February 28 and after two days his family was informed of his death. The security forces of the clerical regime announce his death ruthlessly, as committing suicide by taking poison.

Giving the fact that murder under torture is a crime against humanity and inaction against it is a continuation of crime, all the international community must condemn the blatant violation of human rights in Iran and take urgent measures to impel the clerical dictatorship ruling Iran to free all the detainees of the recent protests in Iran.

A Close Look At Iran's Budget

A country’s budget is the government’s fiscal plan for that state for a period of 12 months. All the country’s revenue and resources to provide credit are forecasted, placed alongside anticipated costs and expenses. The intention of this piece is to provide a much-needed close examination of Iran’s budget.

Iran’s next fiscal budget (from March 2018 to March 2019) is equal to around $350 billion. How is this money provided for? In general, Iran’s budget is funded through oil, taxes, increasing bonds and eliminating cash handouts or subsidies.

Oil, a natural resource belonging to the Iranian people, is currently being plundered by the ruling mullahs for foreign expenditures.

The US Must Act on Iran's Human Rights Abuses

London, 01 Mar - The United Nations Human Rights Council has invited the Iranian Justice Minister Alireza Avayi to speak at its latest session, which began this week, and that sets a very low bar for human rights.

Avayi has been sanctioned by the European Union for many reasons, but the worst is his long record of human rights violations, including his role in the mass execution of 30,000 political prisoners in 1988.

The massacre, described as one of the worst crimes against humanity since World War II, was ordered in a fatwa by then-Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini.

Political prisoners, mainly members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), were hauled before death commissions, interrogated about their political affiliations, and then sentenced to death after a so-called trial that lasted less than five minutes.

They killed children, the elderly, those who had already been sentenced, those who had already served their sentence, those who were pregnant, and those who were ill. The mullahs showed no leniency.

Avayi, then a prosecutor for the Revolutionary Court in the city of Dezful, personally ordered the deaths of numerous political prisoners, but he was still appointed as Justice Minister in 2017 under the so-called moderate President Hassan Rouhani.

Alireza replaced Mostafa Pourmohammadi, who served on one of the death commissions. The fact that the two most recent Justice Ministers played a role in this massacres, shows that the current Regime endorses the massacre.

So should a man like Avayi address a body that is tasked with protecting the world against human rights abuses?

No, of course not. But the problem is the international community must come together to speak out against this.

No international body has even made Iran accountable for this crime and hardly any countries have spoken out either, despite the fact that the MEK leaked reports of the massacre to the West in 1988.

The West was more concerned with trade and oil than stopping human rights abuses. If it had been the other war around, then the UN would be very unlikely to give Avayi a public platform.

In fact the US led the way in this appeasement policy and it is important that they lead the way in changing course. The US must hold Avayi and all others who took part in the massacre responsible for their crimes.

Reza Alizadeh, the political director of Iranian American Community of Florida (IAC-FL), wrote: “Congress is now in a position to nudge the international community in the right direction. It can do so by finally passing a resolution on Iran’s worst single violation of human rights, and by taking the lead in pushing for the establishment of an independent commission of inquiry into that incident and its perpetrators.”

He continued: “At the very least, those who are identified as responsible must be sanctioned and shunned by the international community. Ultimately, they should face charges in the International Criminal Court, not just for the sake of their victims, but also to undermine Iran’s decades-long sense of impunity on this and other issues. This goal is intrinsic to the mission of the United Nations Human Rights Council, and its fulfilment would demonstrate the beneficial role of American leadership.”

European MP ties to Islamic Republic of Iran

European MP ties to Islamic Republic of Iran

By David N. Neumann

After lashing out against opponents of the Islamic Republic of Iran in several parliamentary debates, a member of the European Parliament has admitted to doing the bidding of Tehran. In a meeting in Brussels, Portuguese socialist MEP Ana Gomes acknowledged that she had been instructed in Tehran to bash the Iranian opposition.

“I met with relatives of the victims of a terrorist organisation called MEK,” she said on her visit to Tehran in a meeting of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee on 22 February 2018. After making a number of allegations about the Iranian opposition movement PMOI or MEK, she added: “We cannot continue to allow some members of this parliament, possibly out of naiveté, to continue to abet some of the members of this organization.”

Her claims are particularly surprising, given that competent European and American courts all rejected the terrorist designation of the Iranian opposition years ago. The label had originally been imposed at the behest of Tehran; the only state that currently calls MEK as terrorist is the Iranian government.

Top leaders of the Islamist regime have all blamed the recent nationwide uprisings in Iran on the MEK, while calling for the execution of those arrested as protest leaders.

Last week the Habilian Association, an affiliate of Iran’s notorious Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), published a report about the visit of European lawmakers. Habilian, which claims to be “an NGO run by families of Iranian terror victims,” pointed to the speech of its Secretary General, Mohammad Javad Hasheminejad, as the only non-parliamentarian speaker at a joint meeting between the visiting members of the European Parliament and Iranian MPs on 14 February 2018.

During the meeting with the European delegation, Hasheminejad criticized the visits to the European Parliament of Iranian opposition leader Maryam Rajavi. Later he held a separate meeting with Ana Gomes in which he “praised her brave stance against the MEK,” adding that “she welcomed Habilian’s proposals for more collaboration in future.” The report added that the MEP said that she had been accused by Iranian exiles of being on Tehran’s payroll.

Ms Gomes has been proudly promoting photos of her Tehran visit on twitter and social media, raising questions about how she was allowed to spend so much time cozying up to the “terror victims,” while her colleagues in the same European delegation were denied contact with lawyers and relatives of political prisoners. In fact, the lawyer and mother of Swedish-Iranian doctor Ahmadreza Jalali, who is currently on death row on baseless accusations of espionage, had come for a pre-arranged meeting with the MEPs at their hotel in Tehran. “We were just beginning our conversation when two people from the regime’s security officials intervened and stopped the meeting,” MEP Lars Adaktusson told Swedish radio on his meeting with Jalali’s relatives, adding that the lawyer was forced to leave the hotel.

Ms Gomes accused other members of the European Parliament of “naiveté” for supporting the Iranian opposition, but the two incidents suggest quite the opposite. Why would Iran, one of the world’s worst human rights violators with the highest per capita number of executions in the world, praise the Portuguese MEP and give her such free access to certain individuals, while denying her colleagues access to others?

One of the “victims” whom Ms Gomes has been promoting in her photos is Ibrahim Khodabandeh, named by a 2012 US Library of Congress report as an Iranian intelligence (MOIS) agent. Khodabandeh’s sister-in-law, an English woman based in Leeds, also named as an MOIS operative in the same report, visited the European Parliament last December and spent half a day in Gomes’ office. A week after that visit, Gomes used a parliamentary debate in Strasbourg to demand the expulsion of Iranian opposition activists from the European parliament.

Several European intelligence agencies have reported on Iran’s focus on MEK. Germany’s domestic intelligence service, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution or ‘BfV’ stated in its latest annual report, in July 2017: “The main focus of MOIS is in particular on the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK) and its political umbrella, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).”

Ana Gomes’ close relations with the Islamic Republic is nothing new. But her obsessive use of every opportunity to slam the Iranian opposition and her wholehearted commitment to openly accommodating Tehran’s interests is rather puzzling.

Iran: The arrest of Ahvaz steelworkers, a desperate attempt to end strikes and labor protests

The Iranian Resistance condemns the arrest of the Ahvaz steel striking workers and calls on the general public, especially the youth and workers of Khuzestan, to express solidarity with the strikers and to support families of the detainees, and calls on all international human rights and labor rights organizations to condemn suppressive and anti-labor policies of the clerical regime and to take action for the immediate and unconditional release of the detainees.
Thursday night, March 1, suppressive forces arrested at least 10 striking workers of Ahvaz steel during a raid on the homes of a number of them. This repressive action took place on the tenth day of the strike of more than 300 Ahvaz steelworkers and their daily gatherings in front of the governorate.
Following the upsurge in labor strikes, Khamenei on February 26, blamed these protests to the enemies and said: "One of the basic tasks of our enemies is that they may be able to create a recession, lag in labor complexes, especially large complexes, to force workers to do this ".
On Friday, March 2, Ahvaz steel striking workers were planning to enter Ahvaz Friday prayer show to protest the detention of their colleagues, but policemen prevented them. The workers inevitably gathered in front of the Mosalla. The motorized units of the police force went immediately to disperse the workers. The workers chanted "Friday Imam, listen, we are workers, not mobs".
Abdolreza Mousavi, the owner of Ahvaz Steel, is a large-scale government plunderer and owner of the Zagros Airlines Company, Esteghlal Sports Club of Khuzestan and Great Dariush Hotel in Kish Island. He refuses to pay workers’ wages while he recently ordered the purchase of 28 Airbus planes (IRNA-June 22, 2017).
The anti-labor ruling clerical regime thinks foolishly that with these arrests, it can break the will of the workers who have resolved to take back four decades of their lost rights from this oppressive regime, and prevent its overthrow. The corrupt and bankrupt regime of the mullahs is the first and most important factor in the economic and livelihood problems of the people, and the situation worsens as long as it is in power. Abbas Akhundi, Rouhani's Minister of Road and Urban Planning, in a shocking confession, said on February 25,: "The problem is lack of justice. There is no way to cure fundamental problems ... We can not solve social problems ... A gathering quickly becomes a chaos, a snow immediately disturbs the whole society. This shows that social resilience from a sustainable and durable concept is difficult.”
He said that 30% of the budget should be distributed and 70% dedicated to the civil development, but now our budget is 100% distributed. That means the value-added power tends toward zero.

Iran Arrests 50 Young Men And Women At A Night Party

Iran Security Forces arrested 50 young people at a party in the capital on Thursday night, March 2.
Parties, attended by members of both sexes are illegal in Iran. Men and women are forbidden to attend mixed-gender parties and women are obliged to cover their heads, arms and legs.
There are severe punishments for Iranians who break these laws, including prison terms or flogging.
Recently in January this year, 55 men and women were arrested in a mixed gender party in Birjand, northeast of the country, according to the state-run Mehr news agency.
In yet another case the Amol Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor had announced the arrest of 40 men and women in night parties in the city of Amol, the news was published by the state-run Tasnim news agency on February 17, 2018.