On July 12, 2019, dignitaries from dozens of countries across the world attended an exhibition in Ashraf 3, Albania, which depicted 120 years of resistance for freedom and democracy in Iran. The exhibition was part of the five-day Free Iran 2019 event at the main headquarters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). Following the exhibition, a conference was held, in which several of the visitors delivered speeches, issuing remarks about the struggles of the Iranian people and their resistance movement for freedom in their country.
Following are key remarks by former U.S. senator Joseph Lieberman at the Ashraf 3 conference.
Senator Joe Lieberman:
Thank you. Thank you very much. Mrs. [Maryam] Rajavi, residents of Ashraf, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. It is a great honor to be here. I’m here with my wife, Hadassah. … Hadassah is the child of survivors of the Nazi Holocaust in Europe. And she sees in the exhibit that we just saw echoes of the Holocaust. And she knows as I do when survivors of the Holocaust said never again, it meant never again. And it meant particularly never again will a regime like the one that has captured a great nation and rules in Tehran, never again will that regime be able to treat people as we see they were treated in this exhibit. That’s what the MEK is about.
That’s why as Rudy Giuliani said, you are very kind to thank us Americans and people from around the world who have supported your cause but honestly, you have given us the opportunity to be true to our national principles and universal principles. The Declaration of Independence almost 250 years ago, what did they write? We hold these truths to be self evident, that every person is created equally by God and endowed by God with the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those rights weren’t given by God only to Americans. They were given to every child born, every young person whose life was cut short by the brutality of the Iranian regime. So, you in the MEK, the National Council of Resistance of Iran [NCRI], have given us the opportunity to be true to our national principles.
… In some sense, if you’ll go with me for a moment, I feel that I am representing the spirit of my dear friend and your great advocate, Senator John S. McCain. John believed in this cause. He fought for it with all his heart. There were people at the outset who told him, “Stay away, the establishment, stay away. You don’t know about this group.” John spent the time to learn and he became as fierce an advocate for freedom for the people of Iran, and the leadership of the MEK as anybody anywhere in the world. John came here to Ashraf 3 in April of 2017 and he came back and he said to me, “Joe, there’s a new Ashraf that’s going to rise. I can’t see much of it now. It’s on a beautiful location in Albania. But I know these people and it’s going to end up being something magnificent.” And it is.
So often we fight for causes and we never know whether we’ve achieved anything. It meant so much for all of us working by your side that the residents of Ashraf, Camp Liberty, were finally liberated from Iran. But to come here today to see this magnificent community that you built, it’s miraculous and it teaches us lessons. One is that the residents of Camp Liberty and Ashraf, no matter what brutality was imposed on them by the Iranians, never gave up. That was Churchill remember, never, never, never give up.
And the other lesson here is that the MEK never left you, never left you behind. Led by Mrs. [Maryam] Rajavi. Your story is the story of what the MEK is all about. Fighting for freedom but standing together…
So, walking through these halls, there’s a mourning that goes on, sadness. And yet ultimately this exhibition is inspiring. And the whole story of the Ashrafis is inspiring…
And together with the kind of support, with the kind of leadership Mrs. [Maryam] Rajavi and the MEK have given and will give in a liberated, independent Iran, with the support, the strength of the movement, the people who are here and the people who are throughout Iran today, waiting for the moment to rise up, and with the support of people from around the world who are represented here, well, one day we’re going to come together in Ashraf 4 and it’s going to be in Tehran, Iran. And we’re going to have a great party. God bless you and thank you.
