THE BURGEONING RESISTANCE IN IRAN

Sixty years ago, three young students in Iran came together and formed a group to oppose the Shah’s dictatorship and help the Iranian people achieve freedom and democracy. Mohammad Hanifnejad, Ali-Asghar Badizadegan and Saied Mohsen, were arrested, tortured and executed by Savak, the Shah of Iran’s brutal secret police. Since that day, the People’s Mojahedin of Iran/ Mojahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK) has grown to become the main and most organised Iranian opposition group, resisting two successive dictatorships — those of the Shah and now the mullahs. For the last four decades, the PMOI has been the backbone of the broader coalition of Iranian groups and personalities — the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) — which is leading the fight to overthrow the religious dictatorship of the mullahs and establish a free, democratic, and secular republic in Iran.

The 1979 revolution in Iran demonstrated that the PMOI was on the side of the people by opposing the Shah’s dictatorship. Its belief in a progressive Islam and democracy led it to reject the absolute rule of the clergy from the outset, identifying the mullahs’ Islamic fundamentalism as the most serious threat to the democratic aspirations of the Iranian people and the world. While the international community has failed and continues to fail to understand this reality, the mullahs knew that the PMOI posed the most serious threat to their absolute rule. The regime’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, made this clear when he declared, “The greatest threat to the Islamic Republic is neither the West nor the East, but exists within Iran.”

Since it hi-jacked the revolution in Iran in 1979, the mullahs’ regime has done everything in its power to eliminate the PMOI and, by extension, the culture of resistance and the Iranian people’s dream and struggle for a free, democratic, secular republic. This included the killing of over 120,000 supporters and members of the PMOI, as well as the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in the summer of 1988; the terror assassinations of NCRI members in several European countries; rocket and missile attacks against PMOI members in Camps Ashraf and Liberty in Iraq; and terror bombings targeting NCRI and PMOI gatherings in Albania and Paris. Parallel to these murderous attacks on the PMOI abroad, the regime has maintained a systematic persecution of family members, supporters, and members of the PMOI inside Iran for the last four decades. The ongoing sham trials in absentia of 104 PMOI and NCRI members by the regime’s judiciary in Tehran are the culmination of this persecution.

The mullahs’ efforts to eliminate the PMOI also relied on a massive campaign of demonization and propaganda, both at home and abroad, to tarnish the organised Iranian opposition. The regime has spent millions, if not billions, of dollars on this propaganda campaign, publishing hundreds of books, magazines, and articles, as well as producing documentaries, movies, and TV shows to demonize and traduce the PMOI. The mullahs have also used Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS) agents disguised as former PMOI members and Iranian activists to attack and demonize the PMOI. But their campaign has failed. There is huge international support for the PMOI and NCRI, encompassing leading politicians, dignitaries, academics and legal experts. Inside Iran, there has been a surge of young people, including many women, flocking to join the Iranian Resistance, whose burgeoning resistance units are dedicated to the overthrow of the theocratic dictatorship. There are almost daily fire-bombing attacks on Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Basij militia compounds and offices. Dozens of government websites have been disrupted and defaced. Cyberattacks have taken down entire ministry systems. Graffiti, posters and banners depicting Mrs Maryam Rajavi, the charismatic and courageous president-elect of the NCRI, adorn public buildings and flyovers. Young resistance fighters risk their lives daily to voice their opposition to the totalitarian regime.

The success of the PMOI can be attributed to three factors. First, their embrace of the leadership of women stands in direct contrast to the misogynist clerical regime that has relegated women to second-class citizens both in law and in practice. This means that the PMOI effectively provides a platform for Iranian women to lead the resistance and to shape the future of Iran.  The fact that the PMOI is led by women makes it unique not only in Iran but also throughout the Middle East. This is particularly significant given that women and girls constitute over half of Iran’s population and by the fact that they are at the forefront of the popular protests and uprisings. The second factor is the selflessness and personal sacrifices of the PMOI in continuing the fight against the regime and in keeping alive the hope for a better future. The third factor is the PMOI’s steadfast and uncompromising commitment to democratic regime change and, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, to form a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

As the PMOI and NCRI gain international recognition and expand their resistance units in Iran, the mullahs’ regime becomes more isolated and increasingly embroiled in intense internal fighting. As Mrs. Rajavi secures one victory after another in the justice-seeking campaign to hold the regime and its leaders accountable for their crimes against the Iranian people and their crimes against humanity, the mullahs desperately try to escalate regional conflicts like the war in Gaza, to distract international attention from the alarming number of executions, mass arrests of protesters, and violent crackdowns in Iran, intended to prevent future uprisings.

Today, a free and democratic Iran is very much within reach. The question is not if, but when the Iranian people and the Iranian Resistance will overthrow the regime and restore freedom, justice, women’s rights, human rights, an end to executions and an end to the nuclear threat. That is why the regime’s lobbyists and proponents of the failed appeasement policy parrot the regime’s line that there is no viable alternative and no real opposition to the current regime. Nothing could be further from the truth, and the West must reject this falsehood and back the Iranian people and their main, democratic opposition movement, the PMOI.