PARIS — Over 100,000 Iranian dissidents have rallied on Saturday in a giant gathering here calling for the downfall of Iran’s theocratic government. Since morning thousands of Iranians have been pouring in to France’s famous Bourget hall. Coaches are lining up the venue’s main entrance bringing in crowds from across the continent.
The rally enjoyed a significant boost in support from an array of senior current and former American, European and Middle East officials and politicians, who have placed their collective weight in support of rally organizer, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) an umbrella organization representing a wide variety of Iranian opposition entities seeking to establish freedom and democracy in Iran, reported, www.mojahedin.org website.
Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of NCRI, in an interview with Washington Times, said that this year’s rally participants “represent the voice of millions of Iranians who are being oppressed in their country and who seek regime change and the establishment of a democratic, pluralist and non-nuclear government based on the separation of religion and state.”
“Their expectation of the next US president, as with other Western leaders, is to abandon the policy of appeasement, which emboldens the Tehran regime to intensify the suppression of the Iranian people while continuing the policy of exporting terrorism to the region,” she said.
Maryam Rajavi, president-elect of the opposition group in exile, said Saturday that Tehran is concealing its “failure” by supporting “massacres” committed by the Syrian regime during a indoor rally in Paris.
Rajavi, head of the French-based Iranian opposition movement Free Iran, also said, “Those resisting Wilayat Al-Faqih regime are increasing and spreading their influence.” Wilayat Al-Faqih, meaning the ‘Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist’ is Iran’s current system of clerical rule.
Rajavi added: “Khamenei’s circle is looking for an outlet to escape crisis [at home] has failed.”
The opposition leader also warned that executions and arrests are taking place at a larger rate since the Iranian revolution in 1979, which toppled the pro-American Shah. She said “regime change” is the “only solution” for Iran is to exit this “deteriorating” situation.
Rajavi, while speaking to Circa News, also said that Muslim women have an important role in ending repression against ethnic and religious minorities in the Middle East. She said that engaging women in the political process in countries that repress dissent and foment extremism can help push the international community to take action.
“They must speak out. This is what the mothers can do. I believe it is time that women enter into the political arena,” said Rajavi. “This silence and this appeasement also paved the way for its fundamentalism, terrorism and extremism.”
She said that she hopes that people inside Iran and in the region will stand up to the regime’s destructive behavior. “The reality is that the fundamentalist regime ruling Tehran, which has been in power for more than three decades, is the source of export of fundamentalism and terrorism throughout the region and world,” she said. “So if we want to fight against this phenomenon, we must dry up this swamp so the mosquitoes die.”
Prince Turki Al-Faisal, former head of Saudi intelligence chairman of the Board of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, in his address at the gathering said: “Iranian people were the first victim of founder of Islamic Republic of Iran Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhollah Khomeini.”
He said the late Khomeini and his followers have long intended to export the Islamic revolution elsewhere in the world to fasten the coming of Mahdi Al-Muntadhar, seen by some Muslims as the ultimate savior of humankind and the final Imām of the Twelve Imams who will emerge with Isa (Jesus Christ) in order to fulfill their mission of bringing peace and justice to the world.
Prince Turki said: “Arabs will always be respectful to Persians,” highlighting commonalities between the Middle Eastern entities.
Prince Turki cited forgotten truths as to what Persian history of regimes truly looked like. Speaking of the heritage shared by Persians and the rest of the Muslim world, Prince Turki said that “Al-Ghazali, the theologian, scholar and mystic often referred to as one of the most important Muslims after the Prophet Muhammad’s (PBUH) companions, was from a city near Mashhad.”
“In Saudi Arabia in particular, despite words of welcome of a constitutionally Islamic government in Iran by the Saudi leadership of 1979, Khomeini in his first year in power not only supported sectarian separatists in the Saudi Eastern Province, but also denounced all Muslim monarchies as un-Islamic,” Prince Turki added.
“Khomeini combined the Persian imperial ambition of the Shah with the more recent Shi’ite authority of his intellectual ancestors in Qom. This was an Iranian empire like no one had ever seen: insular, combative, and eschewing cultural exchange in favor of a claim to so-called universal truth rooted in self-interest and maintenance of the new revolutionary elite.”
The new mullah regime had become to be known as a widely bigoted ruling entity, even against Iranians themselves, “despite this isolationist and interventionist foreign policy, the first and foremost victims of Khomeinism have been the Iranian people themselves — not only the political activists opposed to his all-encompassing, authoritarian and totalitarian ideology; but also to the ethnic and religious minorities of Kurds, Arabs, Azaris, Turkmans, Baloch, Sunnis, Ismailis, Bahais, Christians, and Jews of Iran against the clerical Twelve religio-political elite of the Revolution,” Prince Turki said.
Turki lauded the exertions spent by the 100,000 who had gathered in hopes of freeing their homeland from an oppressive regime. The Prince also asserted that the whole of the Muslim world stands to support their cause both in heart and soul.
“And you, Maryam Rajavi, your endeavor to rid your people of the Khomeinist cancer is an historic epic that, like the Shanameh, will remain inscribed the annals of history,” the Prince addressed Rajavi, wife of the Iranian activist and MEK leader Massoud Rajavi.
Former White House Director of Public Liaison Linda Chavez opening the Grand Iranian gathering here said, “Let’s honor and commend the bravery and dedication of Camp Liberty residents. We all know that Camp Liberty came under heavy missile attacks on July 4th, which left vast destruction and dozens of injuries.
“The Mullahs perpetrating this attack showed that what threatens them the most and what are they afraid of the most. Therefore let’s make it clear to the mullahs that nothing can and would prevent the Iranian Resistance from forging ahead for democracy and freedom in Iran.”
The only method to establish democracy in Iran and establishing relations with the Iranian Resistance led by Maryam Rajavi, said Chavez in prelude to this grand gathering.
One cannot justify the execution of more than 2,500 people in Iran under the tenure of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Chaves explained, adding the next US government must assist in establishing democracy in Iran.
US Sen. John Boozman, addressing his 'friends' at the mass Free Iran rally here, said he was 'disturbed' by the growing number of human rights violations in Iran and by the plight of the Iranian Resistance members in Camp Liberty.
The camp was subjected to a missile bombardment on July 4, which injured more than 50 of the unarmed residents of the PMOI or MeK.
Sen. Boozman, a member of the Iran Human Rights and Democracy Caucus which aims to shed light on the efforts of Iranian people to bring democracy to Iran, said in a letter to the gathering that he is 'committed to preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapons program,' and to the 'noble cause' of the Resistance.
The United States Congressman, Brad Sherman, veteran of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, emphasized the significance of the Free Iran rally and he congratulated the PMOI for "the critical role it played in exposing the Iranian regime's nuclear weapons program."
Patrizia Toia, a Member of the European Parliament from Italy, declared that she desires to "encourage everyone to join the event in Paris."
Many of the Iranians who have flocked to Paris to attend the Iranian Resistance's gathering for regime change are holding banners denouncing the executions and other human rights abuses carried out by the mullahs' regime. Others are waving Iran's tri-color flag and holding signs in support of Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance.
Large numbers of Syrian exiles, who oppose the regime of Bashar al-Assad, are queuing up to enter the Iranian Resistance's rally. These Syrian opposition supporters denounced the support of Iran's fundamentalist regime to Assad in the massacre of their countrymen and are there to show their solidarity with the Iranian Resistance. They reiterated that we have a common enemy — the regimes of the mullahs and Bashar Assad. — Agencies
