pmoi – Iran Lobby

Relocation of Iranian Dissidents a Triumph Against Regime Efforts

September 14, 2016 by admin

Relocation of Iranian Dissidents a Triumph Against Regime Efforts

A camp in Iraq has been home to a large group of Iranian dissidents and a constant thorn in the side of the mullahs in Tehran. Since 1986, the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), one of the largest and oldest Iranian resistance groups opposed to religious rule of the Iranian regime, has resided in Iraq, its numbers swelled by Iranians fleeing the mullahs’ rule over the years.

Camp Ashraf was a monument to the tenacity and endurance of the Iranian resistance movement which took over a barren piece of land without facilities, infrastructure or even a source of water and turned it into a modern city complete with schools, medical and manufacturing facilities and even sports fields.

It was partly used as a U.S. military base during the Iraq invasion and eventually turned over to the Iraqi government in 2009 with the PMOI population rising to as much as 3,400 residents by 2012.

In the aftermath of the U.S. drawdown of forces in Iraq, the Iranian regime increased its influence within the Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki, eventually forcing the expulsion of Sunnis from the coalition government and rearming the Shiite militias, part of the terrorist Quds force a branch of IRGC.

The Iranian regime influence manifested itself with an increasing number of deadly attacks on the residents of Camp Ashraf by Iraqi security forces at the behest of Iranian officials. Over the past 10 years, Camp Ashraf has been attacked several times, the worst being on April 8, 2011 when Iraqi security forces stormed the camp and killed as many as 36 and wounding 320 residents, and on September 1, 2013, leaving a death toll of 52 victims.

The attacks had been widely condemned by human rights groups such as Amnesty International and the United Nations.

For the PMOI members living there, surviving against this constant harassment was a symbol of the resistance to the mullahs’ efforts and a constant reminder to Tehran that Iranians stood against their tyrannical rule.

As part of a U.S.-brokered agreement, relocation of the PMOI members to safe third-countries willing to take them became the compromise that ultimately helped save these lives and place them out of the reach of the Iranian regime.

For the Iranian regime, the continued existence of PMOI/MEK was anathema to it because it represented a viable alternative to the rule of the mullahs and offered a narrative of a free, open, democratic and pluralistic government alternative to what the Iranian people experienced, which is why the regime placed such an emphasis on attacking Camp Ashraf, as well as banning membership in the group in Iran; making it punishable by imprisonment or death.

Almost 2,000 dissident Iranians resettled in nearly a dozen European countries, including the UK, since the start of 2016.

Shahin Gobadi, spokesperson for PMOI/MEK, said the successful relocation of the group represented a “major blow to the clerical regime and a major victory for the Iranian Resistance”.

He added: “One has to keep in mind that this happened despite all the conniving and conspiracy and obstructions by the clerical regime which sought to force the residents to either give up resistance and succumb or to be massacred.”

A milestone was reached when the last PMOI/MEK members were safely relocated out of Camp Ashraf to Albania this week. Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the Iranian Resistance, heralded this as a major setback for the totalitarian regime.

“In these 14 years, thanks to the endurance of the PMOI and its members in Ashraf and Camp Liberty, and relentless political and international campaigns, the clerical regime’s schemes to destroy and annihilate the Iranian Resistance were thwarted. The Iranian people’s movement for freedom thus took a substantial step forward against the clerical regime. The regime’s plan to guarantee its own survival with the physical elimination of the PMOI/MEK was foiled,” she said.

The significance of the move should not be lost as the regime and its allies in the Iran lobby have tried over the past decade to demonize and denigrate the Iranian resistance movement, but failed in their efforts.

The resistance movement embodied in PMOI/MEK and the umbrella National Council of Resistance of Iran, has been responsible for many of the most devastating disclosures about the illicit activities of the mullahs in Tehran, including the first revelations of Iran’s secret nuclear program, as well as the ongoing deterioration of human rights in Iran.

It is for those reasons and more that the Iranian regime has tried hard to eradicate the movement and its members, but after nearly five years, the last members of the Iranian resistance are finally in safety and security.

By Michael Tomlinson

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 Heartbeat of a Resistance Movement

June 12, 2015 by admin

On December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks was asked by a bus driver to move to the back of a municipal bus for coloreds and leave the section reserved for white passengers. In response she said “No.”

A simple word, but one filled with profound meaning because while her act of defiance landed her in jail and caused her to lose her job as a seamstress in a local department store, it launched the now famous Montgomery Bus Boycott which was immortalized in the movie “Selma” and helped push Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. to national prominence.

If we consider the context of place and time, Rosa Parks’ decision could not have been an easy one knowing it could land her in an Alabama jail during segregation when scores of blacks had been mistreated or even killed.

“I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear,” Parks said in response to questions over her fears.

That same mindset is one that countless activists around the world have as they battle oppressive regimes with acts of defiance great and small; whether it was Malala Yousafzai, the youngest Nobel Laureate who was shot in the face by Taliban opposed to her activism for women’s rights and education, or Maryam Rajavi, a woman who leads one of the largest resistance groups to the Iran regime in the National Council of Resistance and whose members have been arrested, imprisoned, tortured and killed by the Iran’s religious courts.

Parks quote is important because it clearly illustrates what often separates activists from the rest of us; the willingness to put oneself at risk knowing their actions might bring arrest or even worse upon them.

Nowhere is that more true than in the Islamic state of Iran where the ruling mullahs enforce a brutal religious code that rules everything from civil life to economic matters to making war on its neighbors. Anyone offering up dissent is usually ticketed for a one-way trip to Evin Prison and often a nearby public square for a hanging.

It is a barbaric system that many of risen up to oppose. Mrs. Rajavi’s group, including the PMOI/MEK groups, have led a long-suffering campaign to help get the word out on protests inside Iran past the Internet blockades, social media bans and confiscation of satellite dishes imposed by the mullahs.

This includes recent mass protests by Kurds in the north, large protests over the teetering economy, and waves of protests by teachers sweeping across Iran over wages and working conditions all point to a deep level of disaffection and disenfranchisement by the Iranian people and their religious overlords.

It’s worth remembering that the original Iranian revolution to overthrow the Shah was precipitated with a remarkably similar set of circumstances such as severe economic displacement among the people and a harsh crackdown by the government on dissenters which only grew as the protests grew.

The same scenario is now happening in Iran. Given the steep declines in Iranian GDP over the past year because of the massive drains on the treasury in funding Assad in Syria to the tune of $35 billion and to keep Shiite militias in Iraq equipment and Houthi rebels in Yemen supplied has placed the Iranian economy on a precarious ledge.

This Saturday in Paris, the global resistance to the Iran regime will be holding its annual gathering with a livestream available. We can only hope from that meeting of the thousands come a similar number of Rosa Parks whose simple acts of defiance can be the building blocks, brick by brick, of a new, democratic and free Iran.

By Laura Carnahan