Analysis by PMOI/MEK
Iran, July 23, 2020—“For four decades, the clerical regime has been making every effort through its demonization campaigns, executions, massacres and terrorism, to destroy this alternative, which is what needs to exist,” Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said in her keynote speech to the “Free Iran Global Summit,” on July 19.
Mrs. Rajavi’s remarks and remarks made by other speakers at the event shed light on the demonization campaign by the Iranian regime’s Ministry of Intelligence against the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK).
For four decades, the Iranian regime has been seeking to convince the world that it has no alternative and that the world must get along with the mullahs.
And for four decades, it has failed.
41 years of failed efforts
The mullahs’ initial goal was to totally eradicate the MEK through brutal torture and execution of their members. Over 41 years, the regime has executed and assassinated more than 120,000 members and supporters of the MEK, and executes anyone who supports the Iranian opposition.
“In the past 40 years, the regime has constantly and incessantly declared that the PMOI/MEK and the Iranian Resistance are its main enemy and the regime’s first red line. Therefore, in such a historic confrontation, one can identify the position and political coordinates of all forces and groups,” Mrs. Rajavi said.
The July 19 conference was held in memory of 30,000 political prisoners slaughtered by the Iranian regime in the summer of 1988.
When all the efforts of the mullahs to destroy the MEK and the NCRI failed, they tried to push the idea that the PMOI/MEK and the NCRI are worse than the regime and therefore, again, the world must try to get along with this regime.
These efforts have been made through a massive slandering campaign inside and outside Iran, through domestic and foreign media and by creating front organizations and fake oppositions that try to discredit the MEK and NCRI.
The Iranian Resistance faces groups and individuals who are either with the clerical regime, or are their de facto allies, or are somewhat aligned and moving in the same direction with the regime. These entities claim to be in opposition to the regime but in reality are aligned with the mullahs in regards to sanctions and the nuclear and missile projects, or the activation of the snapback mechanism in the six suspended UN Security Council resolutions against the regime; or, over the terrorist designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), or in the case of Qassem Soleimani, and the regime’s interventions in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.
Maryam Rajavi at the Free Iran Global Summit at Ashraf 3, Albania, July 17, 2020
The Iranian Resistance, a mirror image of 40-year struggle in Iran
In her speech, Mrs. Rajavi described the NCRI as “the yardstick and mirror image of 40-year struggle in Iran” and added that all parties reveal their true colors in response to a basic and fundamental question about their real choice in practice between the clerical regime and the NCRI, between the PMOI/MEK and the ruling mullahs, whether they are “moderates, reformists or hardliners.” Which one do they prefer?
This truth fully shows why the regime’s demonization and animosity against the PMOI/MEK and the terrorism directed against the Iranian Resistance is carried out on such an enormous scale and what the objectives behind them are.
On June 30, 31 prominent American dignitaries declared in a statement: “The one organization that has done more than any other entity, including governments, to free Iranian citizens from tyranny and the world from fundamentalist-inspired terrorism is the NCRI. The NCRI strives relentlessly to ensure that hope for democracy and an end to injustice remains alive in Iran.”
Objective alliance between theocrats and monarchists
Former mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani and one of the signatories of this statement said in his remarks on the first day of “Free Iran Global Summit”: “The MEK is the main component of the NCRI, and with its network, it’s the driving force for change. And that’s the reason why the regime has singled it out for murder. There are those Iranian apologists here in America and in the West, people who are paid by the Iranian regime, who said the NCRI and the MEK don’t amount to much. They’re a cult. They have very few followers. They have no chance to replace the regime. But then if you listen to the words of the Ayatollah and his puppet, Rouhani, just over the last year, two or three times the Ayatollah and four or five times Rouhani have said that the only threat to their regime, the only organization that has any change to put together a government to replace them, is the NCRI and the MEK.”
Ingrid Betancourt, former Colombian presidential Candidate, said the objective alliance between theocrats and monarchists is that they both attack the Iranian democratic forces.
“Those that are uniting all protestors inside Iran and gathering international support outside its borders, those are for both of them the real enemy, namely the NCRI and especially the MEK, have been their common targets because they can see how people in Iran are recognizing their leadership as a unifying organized force to defeat the regime and open finally the way to democracy. For years, the mullahs’ regime has campaigned to portray the MEK as a terrorist organization and it has failed,” Betancourt said.
Day-2 of the Free Iran Global Summit, Call-for-Justice virtual conference, commemorating victims of the 1988 massacre at MEK headquarters in Ashraf 3, Albania
The 80/20 tactic
“I studied these allegations and I was looking for the most credible sources of what was the truth behind the allegations and I found that in the Western press and the thinktanks, the allegations were not supported by the most credible evidence,” said Lincoln Bloomfield, former Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs from 2001 to 2005.
“The more I looked, the more I found that the story of this group, the true story of the MEK, has been erased. It has been entirely misrepresented,” Bloomfield continued and added:“When I read Western news reports of Friday’s virtual rally and the Twitter criticisms that try to prevent anyone from mentioning the resistance, it is the reporters and the analysts whose motives must now be questioned. Are they on Tehran’s payroll? Are their relatives being threatened (of harm)? Are they agents of the regime following the 80/20 tactic. I’m sure you know what the 80/20 tactic is. You should criticize the regime 80% of the time but make sure that 20% you criticize the NCRI and MEK so it looks more authentic and credible.”
Pressure on foreign journalists
In the same conference, former U.S. Senator Robert Torricelli referred to the case of German media outlet Der Spiegel, which published false news about the MEK and was later ordered by a German court to remove it. “And I’m embarrassed to tell you the same would have happened with the New York Times, but for the fact that our laws and constitution are different and the courts cannot as readily undertake such action,” Toricelli said.
Adam Ereli, former U.S. Ambassador to Bahrain, said that the MEK’s efforts have been instrumental in exposing the conspiracy of terror by the regime in Tehran over many, many years and that it has a very important successes in disrupting the Iranian regime’s terrorist activities.
The regime has not only tried to destroy the MEK in Iran but also tried to discredit and demonize it outside of the country.
“They have funded information campaigns against you. They have tried to convince journalists, governments, think tanks, that the MEK is an outlaw organization, that it doesn’t represent Iranians, that it has no following inside Iran. Well, again, the fact that they’re saying this indicates to me that the opposite is true. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be spending all this money and effort to present a false narrative,” Mr. Ereli added.
Tom Ridge, first U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, concluded: “As we’ve said during the course of this three-day summit, it’s time for the world to embrace regime change. It’s time for the world to recognize that within the NCRI, this incredible organization led by a leader who has been able to generate over the past 15 years that I’ve been working with this group global support for her vision, and the vision of Iran, a non-nuclear Iran that understands and promotes gender equality, freedom of speech, separation of religion and state. So, I say to those that have participated during the past three days of this unprecedented summit, for those who continue to publicly, loudly, and consistently proclaim their support for the NCRI and for the freedom-loving people of Iran, that I’m very, very proud to be part of this group. It grows larger and more global every year.”
