London, 2 Jul - Experts and scholars, prior to participating in #FreeIran gathering, joined a panel discussion, held in Paris to discuss the current social-political situation in Iran and the role of the Iranian opposition (MEK) in this regards. The meeting was organized by the “Foundation for Middle East Studies (FEMO)”, and the “Alliance for Public Awareness, Iranian Communities in Europe(APA)”. The panel was moderated by Ambassador Lincoln Bloomfield, former Assistant Secretary of State for Military Affairs, who was joined by Kenneth Blackwell, former US Ambassador to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Linda Chavez, Founder and Chairwoman of the Center for Equal Opportunity and former White House Public Relations Liaison, Ramesh Sepehrrad, scholar practitioner from George Mason University in the US, Robert Torricelli, Member of the US Senate from 1997 to 2003 who also served 14 years in the U.S. House of Representatives, and Mohammed Alsulami, head of AGCIS and expert on Iran.
Ramesh Sepehrrad, the first speaker in the
panel, who had focused her research on Iranian affairs, political governance,
human rights, gender equality and U.S. policy, said that she once led a study
of opposition groups to see where the core argument is. She found that the role
of the Supreme Leader, the role of women and gender equality and democratic
views were core issues when looking at opposition groups. For these specific
reasons, the MEK and NCRI stand out.
Sepehrrad highlighted that this is not just in
relation to rhetoric, but in particular with regards to action taken. She said
that these opposition groups engage with the people of Iran on a day to day
basis.
She said that the NCRI is popular inside Iran.
Obviously, this is not something that can be easily checked by doing a poll or
carrying out a survey because of the Iranian regime’s extreme reactions of
violence when faced with dissent. There are countless cases of people being
punished when they are discovered to be supporting the opposition. However, she
said that the popularity of the NCRI can be gauged when participation at major
events is analysed. Supporters of the NCRI/MEK are present at the right place,
at the right time, posing questions the source of which are none by the
NCRI/MEK. Supporters of the NCRI/MEK risk everything to stand up to the regime.
Young people, old people, women, students – everyone will question the regime.
Sepehrrad said that there have been renewed
calls for justice for the 1988 massacre in which over 30,000 political
prisoners were executed. She said that this could be the perfect opportunity
for the West to take effective action against the regime. With the support of
Western governments calling for justice, more and more people in the country
will stand up against the regime knowing it has international support. She
believes that this is a weakness that must be used as an opening. Another
opening is the regime’s infighting and the factional disputes that are making
the people stronger.
When asked if Iran being expelled from Syria
would make a difference she said yes – the regime’s plans for Syria will
crumble, and this will have a knock-on effect that will cause the whole regime
to crumble.
Linda Chavez spoke about the history between
the PMOI/MEK and the US. She said that it is a history that started off very
badly. The United States put the PMOI/MEK on the terrorist list and for many
years was not taken seriously because of this designation. However, the
PMOI/MEK were rightfully removed from the terrorist list and are now in a
position to be heard again.
She emphasised that the NCRI/MEK now has a
very strong following in Iran and needs to have a stronger following in the
West. Although there is a large bipartisan following in Washington, there is
room for improvement. She believes that with President Trump in office there is
a good possibility that MEK’s voice will be heard.
Blackwell spoke about the humanitarian and
strategic interests of the Iranian situation. He said it would be great if both
interests could be addressed at the same time, but that it was likely the
United States would go for strategic interests first. This would be to topple
the regime.
With regards to the strategic side, he said
that the NCRI/MEK has exposed extremely strategic information at extremely
important times.
Blackwell said that he wants to ensure that we
support and nurture the forces of freedom that advance human rights. “We have
to look for forces of good. Let a thousand blossoms bloom.” He said he strongly
believes that the corrupt and repressive regime can be toppled.
He emphasised that human rights struggles are
not a spectator sport. “You can’t sit on the side-lines. You have to engage and
do what you can where you are.” Blackwell believes that efforts can trigger
major changes and said that the regime’s illegitimacy is so multi-faceted that
its reign has a short life expectancy.
Mohammed Alsulami pointed out that Iran is a
country that is very rich in natural resources, yet 50 per cent of retired
people live under the poverty line, 75 per cent of teachers live under the
poverty line and 40 percent of the whole population live under the poverty
line. He said that employment is at a terribly low rate and that there is a big
problem with addiction in the country with reports of children as young as 12
suffering from different forms of addiction.
He rubbished claims that Rouhani is a
reformist because the rate of executions has risen. The large amount of funds
that were released because of the nuclear deal were spent outside Iran on
fuelling wars and terrorism.
Alsulami believes the problems started in 1979
after the revolution. Death to Saudi Arabia and death to America were slogans
that were not heard before the revolution. Iran had a good relationship with
its regional neighbours before the revolution – any conflicts that arose were
solved politically. Sunnis and Shias used to live together peacefully, so much
so that no one ever questioned whether their neighbour was Sunni or Shia.
Robert Torricelli paid tribute to the people
that have dealt with and lived through extraordinary tragedies.
He said that military conflict is not a
solution because it probably wouldn’t work. He also thinks it is certain that
the regime cannot heal itself and evolve because there is simply no evidence to
prove this. If left to continue on the same path, the regime will implode from
within because it is in an unstable situation.
He said that the MEK serves a function for the
aspirations of the Iranian people. They have the resources to bring great
change to Iran and he is adamant that it is the only organisation that can do
so because it is viable and set on complete political change. He pointed out
that its members have made the ultimate sacrifice – given their lives – to
fight against the regime and to bring freedom to the people. It fights against
the regime every single day and can help the people of Iran take the future
into their own hands.
More about PMOI (MEK)
The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran
(Also known as MEK, or Mujahedin-e-Khalq / Mujahedeen-e-Khalq), was founded on
September 6, 1965, by Mohammad Hanifnejad, Saeed Mohsen, and Ali-Asghar
Badizadgan. All engineers, they had earlier been members of the Freedom
Movement (also known as the Liberation Movement), created by Medhi Bazargan in
May 1961.
The MEK’s quest culminated in a true
interpretation of Islam, which is inherently tolerant and democratic, and fully
compatible with the values of modern-day civilization. It took six years for
the MEK to formulate its view of Islam and develop a strategy to replace Iran’s
dictatorial monarchy with a democratic government.
MEK’s interpretation of Islam
The theocratic mullah regime in Iran believe
interpreting Islam is their exclusive domain. The MEK reject this view and the
cleric’s reactionary vision of Islam. The MEK’s comprehensive interpretation of
Islam proved to be more persuasive and appealing to the Iranian youth.
MEK’s founders and new members studied the
various schools of thought, the Iranian history and those of other countries,
enabling them to analyze other philosophies and ideologies with considerable
knowledge and to present their own ideology, based on Islam, as the answer to
Iran’s problems.
MEK’s leadership’s arrest during the 70s.
The Shah’s notorious secret police, SAVAK,
arrested all MEK leaders and most of its member’s in1971. On May 1972, the
founders of the MEK, Mohammad Hanifnejad , Saeed Mohsen and Ali Asghar
Badizadegan, along with two members of the MEK leadership, Mahmoud Askarizadeh
and Rasoul Meshkinfam, were put before death squads and were executed after
long months of imprisonment and torture. They were the true vanguards, who
stood against the dictatorial regime of Shah. However, they are also recognized
for their opposition to what is today known as Islamic fundamentalism.
The death sentence of Massoud Rajavi, a member
of MEK’s central committee, was commuted to life imprisonment as a result of an
international campaign by his Geneva based brother, Dr. Kazem Rajavi
(assassinated in April 1990 in Geneva by mullahs’ agents) and the personal
intervention of the French President Georges Pompidou and Francois Mitterrand.
He was the only survivor of the MEK original leadership.
From 1975 to 1979, while incarcerated in
different prisons, Massoud Rajavi led the MEK’s struggle while constantly under
torture for his leading position.
Massoud Rajavi stressed the need to continue
the struggle against the shah’s dictatorship. At the same time, he
characterized religious fanaticism as the primary internal threat to the
popular opposition, and warned against the emergence and growth of religious
fanaticism and autocracy. He also played a crucial role when some splinter used
the vacuum in the MEK leadership who were all executed or imprisoned at the
time, to claim a change of ideology and policy. Massoud Rajavi as the MEK leader
condemn these individual’s misuse of MEK’s name while continuing to stress the
struggle against dictatorship. His efforts while still in prison forced these
individuals to no longer operating under the name of MEK and adopting a
different name for their group. These positions remained the MEK’s manifesto
until the overthrow of the shah’s regime.
Release of Political Prisoners on the last
days of the Shah
A month before the 1979 revolution in Iran,
the Shah was forced to flee Iran, never to return. All democratic opposition
leaders had by then either been executed by the Shah’s SAVAK or imprisoned, and
could exert little influence on the trend of events. Khomeini and his network
of mullahs across the country, who had by and large been spared the wrath of
SAVAK, were the only force that remained unharmed and could take advantage of
the political vacuum. In France, Khomeini received maximum exposure to the
world media. With the aid of his clerical followers, he hijacked a revolution
that began with calls for democracy and freedom and diverted it towards his
fundamentalist goals. Through an exceptional combination of historical events,
Shiite clerics assumed power in Iran.
Khomeini’s gradual crackdown on MEK in fear of
their popular support
In internal discourses, Rajavi the remaining
leader of the MEK, argued that Khomeini represented the reactionary sector of
society and preached religious fascism. Later, in the early days after the 1979
revolution, the mullahs, specifically Rafsanjani, pointed to these statements
in inciting the hezbollahi club-wielders to attack the MEK.
Following the revolution, the MEK became
Iran’s largest organized political party. It had hundreds of thousands of
members who operated from MEK offices all over the country. MEK publication,
‘Mojahed’ was circulated in 500,000 copies.
Khomeini set up an Assembly of Experts
comprised of sixty of his closest mullahs and loyalists to ratify the principle
of velayat-e faqih (absolute supremacy of clerical rule) as a pillar of the
Constitution. The MEK launched a nationwide campaign in opposition to this
move, which enjoyed enormous popular support. Subsequently, the MEK refused to
approve the new constitution based on the concept of velayat-e faqih, while
stressing its observance of the law of the country to deny the mullahs any
excuse for further suppression of MEK supporters who were regularly targeted by
the regime’s official and unofficial thugs.
Khomeini sanctioned the occupation of the
United States embassy in 1979 in order to create an anti-American frenzy, which
facilitated the holding of a referendum to approve his Constitution, which the
MEK rejected.
MEK’s endeavors to participate in the
political process avoiding an unwanted conflict with government repressive
forces
The MEK actively participated in the political
process, fielding candidates for the parliamentary and presidential elections.
The MEK also entered avidly into the national debate on the structure of the
new Islamic regime, though was unsuccessful in seeking an elected constituent
assembly to draft a constitution.
The MEK similarly made an attempt at political
participation when [then] Massoud Rajavi ran for the presidency in January
1980. MEK’s leader was forced to withdraw when Khomeini ruled that only
candidates who had supported the constitution in the December referendum –
which the MEK had boycotted- were eligible. Rajavi’s withdrawal statement
emphasized the MEK’s efforts to conform to election regulations and reiterated
the MEK’s intention to advance its political aims within the new legal system”.
(Unclassified report on the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran(PMOI/ MEK)by the Department of State to the United States House of Representatives,
December 1984.)
However, the MEK soon found itself in a direct
struggle against the forces of the regime’s Supreme leader. The MEK’s
differences with Khomeini dated back to the 1970s, and stem from its opposition
to what is known today as Islamic extremism. Angry at the position taken by the
MEK against his regime and worried about the MEK’s growing popularity, Khomeini
ordered a brutal crackdown against the MEK and its supporters. Between 1979 and
1981, some 70 MEK members and sympathizers were killed and several thousand
more were imprisoned by the Iranian regime.
June 20, 1981- Khomeini’s order to open fire
on peaceful demonstration of half-a-million supporters of MEK
The turning point came on 20th June 1981, when
the MEK called a demonstration to protest at the regime’s crackdown, and to
call for political freedom which half-a-million supporters participated at.
Khomeini ordered the Revolutionary Guards to open fire on the swelling crowd,
fearing that without absolute repression the democratic opposition (MEK) would
force him to engage in serious reforms – an anathema as far as he was
concerned; he ordered the mass and summary executions of those arrested.
Since then, MEK activists have been the prime
victims of human rights violations in Iran. Over 120,000 of its members and
supporters have been executed by the Iranian regime, 30,000 of which, were
executed in a few months in the summer of 1988, on a direct fatwa by Khomeini,
which stated any prisoners who remain loyal to the MEK must be executed.
Having been denied its fundamental rights and
having come under extensive attack at the time that millions of its members,
supporters and sympathizers had no protection against the brutal onslaught of
the Iranian regime, the MEK had no choice but to resist against the mullahs’
reign of terror.
“Towards the end of 1981, many of the members
of the MEK and supporters went into exile. Their principal refuge was in
France. But in 1986, after negotiations between the French and the Iranian
authorities, the French government effectively treated them as undesirable
aliens, and the leadership of the MEK with several thousand followers relocated
to Iraq.” (Judgment of the Proscribed Organizations Appeal Commission, November
30, 2007.)
MEK Today
The MEK today is the oldest and largest
anti-fundamentalist Muslim group in the Middle East. It has been active for
more than a half century, battling two dictatorships and a wide range of
issues. The MEK supports:
• Universal suffrage as the sole criterion for
legitimacy
• Pluralistic system of governance
• Respect for individual freedoms
• Ban on the death penalty
• Separation of religion and state
• Full gender equality
• Equal participation of women in political
leadership. MEK is actually led by its central committee consist of 1000 women.
• Modern judicial system that emphasizes the
principle of innocence, a right to a defense, and due process
• Free markets
• Relations with all countries in the world
• Commitment to a non-nuclear Iran
The MEK remains a strong and cohesiveorganization, with a broad reach both worldwide and deep within Iran. MEK is
the leading voice for democracy in Iran, supported by its interpretation of
Islam that discredits the fundamentalist mullahs’ regime.
Source: MEK's Role in Iran and How It Can Help the Global Peace?
Comments
Post a Comment