Iran Gathering – Iran Lobby

France Points Finger at Iran for Bomb Plot Targeting Resistance Group

October 3, 2018 by admin

In what might be one of the more anti-climactic findings revealed yet about the Iranian regime, France publicly linked Iran’s notorious intelligence services to the failed plot to bomb a meeting of Iranian dissident groups near Paris last June.

A plot of “such extreme seriousness on French territory could not be let go without a response,” France’s ministers of foreign affairs, interior and finance said in a joint statement on Tuesday.

“France has taken preventive, proportionate and targeted measures,” the ministers said. “In taking this decision France reiterates its determination to fight terrorism, especially on its own territory.”

France also acted by announcing it would freeze the assets of the Iranian regime spy ministry, otherwise known as the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), which has been the puppet master in a string of terror attacks and assassinations spanning decades, and most recently spearheaded efforts to utilize social media in coordinated cyberattacks against Iranian dissident groups.

According to the New York Times, the decision to freeze the assets of the spy ministry seemed to be a clear sign France was angry that Iran appeared to be ignoring international norms and acting with impunity. It also indicated that, at least indirectly, France endorsed the Trump administration’s judgment that Iran was a rogue regime.

The French findings certainly didn’t help the Iran lobby’s ceaseless campaigning to have European nations bail the Iranian regime out of its financial woes that have only increased since the U.S. withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal and began levying economic sanctions.

“Behind all this was a long, meticulous and detailed investigation by our (intelligence) services that enabled us to reach the conclusion, without any doubt, that responsibility fell on the Iranian intelligence ministry,” a French diplomatic source said.

The source, speaking after the government announced asset freezes, added that deputy minister and director general of intelligence Saeid Hashemi Moghadam had ordered the attack and Assadollah Asadi, a Vienna-based diplomat held by German authorities, had put it into action.

The ministry is under control of top mullah Ali Khamenei, which makes the decision to bomb the Iranian resistance groups on French soil even more brazen and a deliberate act of state policy by the regime.

According to Reuters, the plot targeted a meeting of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) outside the French capital. President Donald Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and several former European and Arab ministers attended the rally.

It unraveled after Asadi, an accredited diplomat in Austria, was arrested in Germany, two other individuals were detained in Belgium in possession of explosives, and one other individual in France.

On Monday, a court in southern Germany ruled the diplomat could be extradited to Belgium.

French President Emmanuel Macron and Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian spoke to their Iranian counterparts about the issue at the U.N. General Assembly after demanding explanations over Iran’s role.

An internal French foreign ministry memo in August told diplomats not to travel to Iran, Reuters revealed, citing the Villepinte bomb plot and a toughening of Iran’s position toward the West.

Paris has also suspended nominating a new ambassador to Iran and not responded to Tehran nominations for diplomatic positions in France.

The plot marked one of the first times that an Iranian official has been caught allegedly taking part in a covert operation in Europe. Police in a number of different European countries are investigating alleged attacks against Iranian opposition figures, including two murders in the Netherlands since 2015.

In July, Dutch authorities said they had expelled two Iranian diplomats whom foreign officials say were linked to the assassinations of at least one Iranian dissident, Ahmad Mola Nissi. He was shot and killed in November by a masked assassin in The Hague. U.S. officials believe Iran’s MOIS was involved. Dutch authorities are investigating, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Predictably the Iranian regime fired back by falling back on its usual tirade claiming the meeting being targeted was comprised of terrorists and called the accusations against its diplomat as a “false flag ploy.”

Considering the precarious state of the Iranian economy and near-constant state of demonstrations against the regime, it is mind boggling the mullahs would order such a reckless act given Iran’s desperate need for an economic lifeline from Europe.

But past history shows that the mullahs care less about rationality and more about silencing the perceived threat and free and open opposition poses to their continued existence.

The pressure being mounted by outside opposition and dissident groups has helped drive internal protests, as well as ensured a steady conduit of videos, pictures and eyewitness reports continue to stream out even as the regime tries to stymie the flow of information with stepped up arrests and imprisonment.

Also on Tuesday, around 200 French police launched a dawn anti-terror raid on one of the biggest Shiite Muslim centers in France, the Zahra Centre France, as well as the homes of its directors.

Eleven people were questioned — three of them arrested, security sources told AFP, including for the illegal possession of firearms.

The Zahra Center France was founded in 2009 by Yahia Gouasmi, a pro-regime activist and religious figure who has spoken in support of Hezbollah.

Gouasmi is also the founder of the Anti-Zionist Party in France and an associate of controversial comedian Dieudonne M’bala M’bala, a convicted anti-Semite.

While not specifically linked to the bombing plot, the raid sent a clear signal by French authorities to Iranian regime officials that the era of cozy accommodation was at an end.

Iran- The Importance of Resistance as a Force for Good

June 15, 2015 by admin

“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.”

So said famed American author and poet Henry David Thoreau in his landmark essay “Resistance to Civil Government” in which he argued passionately for the importance of disobedience to an unjust state. Thoreau wrote that in 1849 and since then it has influenced the thinking of the likes of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mohandas Gandhi in the art of civil disobedience.

But resistance to corrupt governments is nothing new. You can look at the 800^th anniversary celebrations taking place for Magna Carta, the document that first enshrined protection of church rights, protection for the barons that forced King John of England to sign it from illegal imprisonment, access to swift justice, and limitations on feudal payments to the Crown.

It is almost a genetic imperative for human beings to resist anything that would aim to shackle the free expression of will, creativity or thought. One would like to think in the 800 years since Runnymede or the 166 years since Walden Pond, the world had advanced more in the area of brutality and corruption, but sadly in some parts of the world, it seems we’ve actually gone backwards.

One such place is the Islamic state of Iran, which under the tight rein of a religious theocracy imposed by mullahs, has committed human atrocities and brutalities at home and abroad with mind-numbing frequency. In the 18 months since Hassan Rouhani was handpicked to become president, over 1,700 political dissidents, religious minorities, cultural subversives and ordinary citizens have been executed, most in barbaric public hangings more appropriate for the Dark Ages than the 21^st Century.

But a spark of hope, born 50 years ago in Iran struggling against the despotic rule of one tyrant, only to shift after a revolution was hijacked to fight the mullahs who now rule Iran, has now been fanned into a fierce flame of resistance which was on bold display in a crowded, massive convention hall in Paris on Saturday.

The People’s Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI) was started by a group of Muslim Iranian university students, as a Muslim, progressive, nationalist and democratic organization that has since morphed into one of a number of resistance groups joined under the banner of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in working for regime change in Iran and bringing about a new era of freedom and democracy.

The annual meeting sponsored by Iranian diaspora supporting the NCRI brought an impressive crowd of over 100,000, including 600 dignitaries from over 100 nations, together to join in what amounts to a giant pep rally for regime change. It’s a remarkable sight with bleacher stands packed with men, women and children of all ethnicity, religions and languages waving flags enthusiastically, clapping loudly and cheering heartily after speech after speech.

The fact that these people were still just as enthusiastic in the seventh hour listening to speeches by the representatives of Romania and Portugal as they were when Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, head of the NCRI, and Rudy Giuliani, the expressive former mayor of New York, spoke earlier in the day is either a testament to the effectiveness of French coffee or the deep and abiding passion these delegates had for the plight of their brothers, sisters, husbands, wives and children residing in Iran.

Association, let alone membership, with PMOI or its members is punishable by death in Iran. The same holds true for a number of other resistance groups. Yet these people Instagram selfies, tweet defiance and hashtag support to such an extent, the #Iran_Maryam hashtag used for the gathering ended up as a leading global Twitter trend.

But this resistance movement is more than slogans. It carries with it a very real cost and yields tremendous benefits. The NCRI and its extensive network of supporters within Iran has been able to get past government censors, Internet blockades and confiscated satellite dishes to get the word out about protests and demonstrations, arrests, executions and imprisonments and disclosures about secret Iranian nuclear facilities the mullahs were dying to keep secret.

The fact that the resistance gathering took place only two weeks before the June 30 deadline for the current round of nuclear talks was no accident. It was a shout out to the P5+1 group of nations reminding them of the failure to deliver a real deal that not only guarantees Iran does not develop a nuclear weapon, but also has to change how it does business in the arena of human rights and it support for proxy wars against its neighbors.

As the gathering closed and satisfied and resolute people boarded their buses and headed for trains, you could hear their determination in their voices and the hope in their faces that the window for regime change was finally at hand, which only makes me wish that “Get Up, Stand Up” by Bob Marley and Peter Tosh was the exit song.

“Get up, stand up, Stand up for your rights. Get up, stand up, Don’t give up the fight.”

By Michael Tomlinson

The Countdown to a Gathering of Resistance

May 13, 2015 by admin

In exactly one month from today, there will be one of the largest gatherings of people dedicated to changing Iran from a religious, despotic regime to a multicultural, democratic, secular nation.

The annual meeting, sponsored by the organizations supporting the National Council of Resistance of Iran, one of the largest resistance groups worldwide to the Iran regime, is held outside of Paris, France and offers a platform for elected leaders, women’s activists, religious leaders, death penalty opponents, anti-nuclear groups and Iranian dissidents to join in an united voice against the mullahs in Tehran and their brutality.

Led by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, a moderate woman leader of a global Muslim group, the NCRI offers a compelling and unmistakable contrast to what Iran and its lobbying supporters attempt to portray the resistance as a group of out-of-touch Iranian exiles who do not represent the true hopes of the Iranian people.

The Iran lobby has worked relentlessly to attack any appearance of an organized resistance to the regime. Groups such as the National Iranian American Council, blogs such as Lobelog and columnists such as Eli Clifton have sought to misinform and distort the truth in the hopes of throwing enough mud at a wall so that something, anything will stick. The same goes for the distortions being played out over social media.

Why does the Iran lobby seem so offended by any dissent? Largely because its truth is as fragile as a house of cards, ready to be blown over with the slightest breeze. The daily conduct and revelations about the Iran regime undercuts anything the lobby does.

As it tries to portray Hassan Rouhani as a moderate interested in a nuclear compromise, his master, top mullah Ali Khamenei, denounces any nuclear deal that does not reward the regime with an unconditional lifting of economic sanctions.

As foreign minister Javad Zarif smiles for the cameras with Western leaders, Iran is busy leading proxy wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. And many are being executed at home for various excuses, in order to raise fear amongst people and particularly the women and the youth.

As a sympathetic news media try to portray a nuclear compromise as advantageous for regional security and stability, Iran’s neighbors such as Saudi Arabia openly question the possibility of jumping into a nuclear program of their own to match Iran.

Most galling of all is the central truth facing the Iran lobby; the Iranian resistance is not just a collection of academics or elites living in exile. It is comprised of millions of people of all religions, ethnicities and nationalities, all working towards a common dream of freedom.

It has deep connections to millions of Iranians living within the regime who provide information on human rights abuses, demonstrations, police and paramilitary activities and economic performance; all of which puts to a lie the claims made by Iran’s leaders.

The resistance movement has helped uncover secret Iranian nuclear facilities. It has helped bring to light the arrest, imprisonment and abuse of countless thousands of prisoners of conscience. It has shifted the perception of global leaders who no longer believe the flowery speeches and moderate claims made by the mullahs.

Most of all, the resistance movement is a living, breathing embodiment of the hope for real change in Iran. It cannot be explained away by the Iran lobby and is a constant thorn in their side.

Over the next month, as we build up towards the gathering on June 13th in Paris, we will also be on a parallel track with new nuclear talks aimed at delivering a final agreement by the June 30^th deadline. You can bet the lobby will ramp up the rhetoric and vitriol in order to try and salvage an agreement in the wake of near unanimous action by the U.S. Senate to review and decide on any deal.

If there is one thing we know, the pressure of a countdown to June 30^th will place the Iran regime and its lobby under ever-increasing scrutiny.

By Laura Carnahan