Analysis by PMOI/MEK
Feb. 16, 2019 – We can examine the Wednesday’s Free Iran rally in Warsaw from different angles. But one detail that is often forgotten is the importance of an organized Iranian opposition movement that is present on all fronts inside Iran and across the world. We must remember that in the past centuries, it wasn’t the Iranian people who decided the fate of their country. It was always regional and world powers that decided for Iran.
From the Qajar to the Pahlavi dynasties, the tyrannical rulers of Iran liquidated the riches of the country to preserve their own power. And in the past 40 years, the criminal mullahs ruling in Iran maintained their rule by banking on a failed appeasement policy by the West. And they've done their own fair share of squandering the country's wealth on their own survival.
Had there been no movement to echo the suppressed voices of the Iranian people and defend their rights to live in a free country, the fate of Iran would have been very different. The people of Iran would be crushed between the tyranny of the mullahs and their foreign cohorts who want to make themselves rich at the expense of our country’s wealth and resources.
Imagine for a moment that there wasn’t a strong and devoted opposition movement like the National Council of Resistance of Iran and the PMOI/MEK, an organized resistance whose members have devoted their lives to the cause of freedom and have passed the test of time, defying torture, execution, assassinations, bombings and terrorism.
Without an organized opposition, the mullahs would be ruling over Iran undisputed for years and decades to come. But fortunately, the people of Iran have an independent resistance movement that solely relies on the capacities of their own nation. This resistance doesn’t tolerate the status quo. Neither is it looking back to the past and the tyrants the Iranian people rejected decades ago. The Iranian Resistance only looks to the future, a future that will be built by the youth, the women, the workers, teachers, farmers and all segments of the Iranian society that have endured decades of repression, corruption and tyranny under the rule of the mullahs.
This opposition movement has a platform and a plan to overthrow the Iranian regime and to establish a state that is based on popular vote, equal opportunities for all people, gender equality, respect of all religions and faiths, and the abolishment of execution and torture.
During the demonstration of the Iranian resistance in Warsaw, Senator Robert Torricelli beautifully emphasized this truth. In response to states and politicians who want nothing other than to preserve their trade deals and economic interests with the mullahs and are warning against another “revolution” in Iran, Torricelli said, “To those nations who believed that they must accommodate Tehran because there is no choice, we say to them, we are the choice, the people of Iran.”
To the proponents of the appeasement policy who like to turn a blind eye on what’s happening in Iran, Torricelli said, “The thousands and thousands of Iranians who have risked their lives have taken to the streets of the cities and towns of Iran, they are your choice. The thousands and millions of people of diaspora across Europe, but in America they are the choice, the NCRI is the choice, Maryam Rajavi is the choice. There is a choice for new leadership in Iran.”
Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City and the attorney of U.S. President Donald Trump, reiterated this truth from another perspective: “Maryam Rajavi has laid out a 10-point program. That's about as clear as you can get. Now, let me summarize it. It is simple. All those who believe in an elected leadership in Iran instead of a dictator or a monarch, all those who believe in the freedom of religion so people can practice the religion they choose, all of those that believe that women should be equal and treated equally in society. Do we believe that?” Giuliani said. “And don't we demonstrate that when our great leader is a woman. Just think of how revolutionary that would be in that part of the world. If the leader of Iran were a woman in and of itself that would be a revolution.”
Giuliani also stressed that the platform of the NCRI and Maryam Rajavi shows that the power should be in the hands of the people and the rule of law, not the mullahs, not an individual. In a press conference before the rally, Giuliani emphasized that the Iranian people should regain their country, a country that is not ruled by monarchs or mullahs.
In the rally, Iranians from across the world gathered to call for the terrorist designation of the Revolutionary Guards and the Intelligence Ministry of the Iranian regime. They also called for total sanctions on the Iranian regime and the recognition of the Iranian Resistance as the true and legitimate representative of the Iranian people.
No doubt, the sacrifices of the Iranian people throughout the years are now bearing fruit. Through rain, snow, sleet and hail, through fire and blood, pain and grief, the members of the great family of the Iranian Resistance persisted on the right of the Iranian people to live in freedom and democracy. They denounced the mullahs’ crimes in Iran and across the world and underlined that they do not represent the great nation of Iran, that the true face of Iran are the people who will go to great lengths to protect the universal rights that every human being deserves.
The Iranian people have the right to be hopeful and smile at the hardships as their long and hard journey of reaching freedom is finally in its final phase, and for the first time in more than a century, they have the chance to choose their own destiny.
