On April 8, 2025, honoring the anniversary of the April 8, 2011, attack against Camp Ashraf, PMOI Resistance Units spread messages and held activities across Iran to mark the memories of 36 PMOI martyrs who laid down their lives on that day to defend the bastion of Iran’s struggle for freedom.
The messages inscribed on placards hanging from walls and bridges across Iran, along with slogans written on walls, hoisted the banner of “Resistance at any cost” to overthrow the tyrannical mullahs’ regime and liberate Iran, 14 years after the attack:
- The day to renew the pact with the heroic PMOI martyrs
- A great and unforgettable day
- Resistance and steadfastness
- Those who stood firm until the end
- Like Saba, we stand firm until the end (Saba Haftbaradaran was a PMOI member killed during the April 8, 2011 attack on Camp Ashraf. With her dying words, she said, “We will stand till the end.”)
- We too will stand firm until the end
This message of honor, courage, and resistance echoes from that unequal battle between the unarmed PMOI members in Ashraf and the armored, heavily armed forces directed by Iran’s regime and then-Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki.
On that morning, Iraqi forces, at the behest of the Iranian regime, carried out a brutal attack against the defenseless residents of Camp Ashraf, using firearms and armored vehicles to gun down and crush PMOI members.
The goal of the attack was to put an end to the PMOI once and for all, a goal that the regime has tried time and again (and failed repeatedly) since the early 1980s.
Kermanshah
"Honoring the memory of the martyrs of April 8, 2011, in Ashraf. Salute to Rajavi." pic.twitter.com/vxJIhNkUFD— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) April 8, 2025
Regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei had ordered Qasem Soleimani, then-commander of the terrorist IRGC Quds Force, to finish the job.
Soleimani had briefed Maliki and the criminal mercenaries of the Quds Force to close the PMOI’s dossier with a massive armored assault and barrages of machine-gun fire.
However, the passage of time and the experience of the PMOI’s steadfast and uncompromising resistance proved them wrong. This glorious steadfastness demonstrated that the final say belongs not to the tyrannical regime but to those who hold the flag of Iran’s freedom and do not surrender in face of trials and tribulations.
The bloodthirsty regime sought to finish off Ashraf and eliminate the very question of organized, uncompromising resistance, aiming to sow seeds of despair and hopelessness in the hearts of the youth and rebels in Iran. But Ashraf stood firm and compelled the world to witness its steadfastness.
Indeed, on April 8, 2011, PMOI members taught a lesson of steadfastness for victory with bare hands and braving the odds against the regime’s tyranny and barbarity. It became a model that sowed the seeds of rebellion and uprising throughout Iran. These seeds sprouted among the youth during multiple uprisings in Iran, including in December 2017-January 2018 and in the November 2019 protests.
Tehran
Photos of the martyrs of April 8, 2011. pic.twitter.com/sNxjnRHlNP— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) April 8, 2025
And today, in April 2025, we clearly see how, from the sacrifices made on that day, the defiant voices of the youth and the cries of rebels flow in Tehran, Shiraz, Isfahan, Mashhad, Fardis, Anzali, Lahijan, Sari, Kermanshah, Gorgan, and other cities.
Some of the messages from those heroes, inscribed 14 years later on April 8, 2025, on the placards, banners, and handwritten notes of the Resistance Units in Iran’s cities, are as follows:
“On April 8, 2011, the freedom fighters stood against the regime and kept the banner of defiance and invincibility hoisted against religious fascism”
“The message of the martyrs of the epic of April 8, 2011: We have stood firm until the end, and we will stand firm until the end”
“Hail April 8, 2011, the day of the martyrs of Ashraf, who heroically stood against the agents of the clerical regime”
“April 8 is a reminder of a great and unforgettable epic in recent years”
“Greetings to the martyrs of April 8, 2011, and all martyrs and fighters who, determined to stand firm, continue the path to Iran’s freedom”
“April 8, 2011, is the day of renewing the pact with 36 heroes of the PMOI who, with resistance and steadfastness, stood firm until the end against the cowardly attack of the clerical regime”
Indeed, with their activities, the Resistance Units prove that the sacrifices of the martyrs of Iran’s struggle for freedom have not been in vain and their legacy continues to live through the new generation of youth who continue to carry on where the martyrs left off.