Iran:Successful Completion of the Resettlement of Camp Liberty residents from Iraq to Europe

Iran:Successful Completion of the Resettlement of Camp Liberty residents from Iraq to Europe

This afternoon, September 9, 2016, the final group of Camp Liberty residents (more than 280) departed Baghdad, Iraq, for Albania. This final round of departures marks the successful conclusion to the process of relocating members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) outside of Iraq despite the Iranian regime’s conspiracies, obstruction and threats, which continued until the very last day.

During the four-and-a-half-year-long resettlement process, the residents of Liberty were relocated to European countries, including Germany, Norway, the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Finland, Denmark, Belgium, Italy and Spain. Close to 2,000 residents left Iraq since the beginning of 2016.

In this process, the religious dictatorship ruling Iran provided red notices to Interpol and used fake arrest warrants issued by the Iraqi Judiciary in a bid to prevent the departure of 1,000 PMOI members, and arrest officials and other well-known figures.

Exploiting the post-invasion atmosphere in Iraq, the ruling clerical regime did its utmost to destroy the PMOI/MEK. Three massacres at Camp Ashraf, five missile attacks on Camp Liberty, two cases of abduction of residents, and the imposition of a full-fledged eight-year siege, which left 177 residents dead, constituted parts of this inhumane, albeit futile, plan.

IRAN:How hypocritical the trip to Tehran is from the perspective of a dissident

How hypocritical the trip to Tehran is from the perspective of a dissident

The parade of Western leaders, with their shared weaknesses.

The young Zanjani speaks: “The mullahs haven’t changed”

Il Foglio - April 14, 2016

By Cynthia Martens

Paris. Elham Zanjani has never been to Iran. Her parents left their home country in the 70s, and she was born in Montreal in 1978 and raised in Toronto. Though Zanjani speaks fondly of Canada, as a young girl she was troubled by the knowledge that far away, cousins whom she had never met were living a totally different sort of life.

“You always have in the back of your mind,” she says in an interview with Il Foglio. “How is it possible that I could grow up in a place where I could do sports, I could swim, I could think freely, go to the mall, listen to music, eat what I want and start building the future that I want – but my cousins, the same age as I was, didn’t have the same rights,” she says, noting that the girls had to wear full black chadors. Contact with loved ones in Iran was limited, due to the regime’s aggressive monitoring of phone calls.

The scar of Camp Ashraf

Zanjani’s concern for her relatives eventually blossomed into a desire to work with the Iranian resistance. As a college student in Canada, she was interested in physiotherapy, but instead of finishing her studies, left everything for Camp Ashraf, a city in Iraq near the border with Iran that was home to many political refugees and former prisoners of the Iranian regime. Though she initially expected her stay to be brief, Zanjani stayed for well over a decade, working at the local hospital and putting her language skills – in addition to English, she speaks French, Farsi and a bit of Arabic – to use as an interpreter.

“I got to improve my Farsi, and got to really understand my background much more,” she recalls.

A relatively peaceful life in Ashraf took a turn for the worse after U.S. troops pulled out of Iraq, and residents of the camp experienced several attacks from Iraqi forces guided by a prime minister, al-Maliki, who was sympathetic to the Iranian regime. Zanjani was directly hit by a grenade. Getting proper care for her extensive arm and leg injuries was complicated, and Zanjani eventually returned to Canada, where she recovered.

Brussels Attacks: Iranian State Television claims Europeans ‘only have themselves to blame’ for terror attacks

Iran State TV - 22 March 2016 “ The boomerang return of Daesh”

A Brussels-based NGO has condemned Iran’s regime for broadcasting “sarcastic” reports on its state television about the deadly terrorist attacks in the Belgian capital on 22 March.

The Alliance to Renew Cooperation among Humankind (ARCHumankind) said in statement that it remains “outraged that Iranian State television would make a mockery of the High Representative Vice President Federica Mogherini on the basis of her human reaction to those who had lost their lives and were targeted by ISIL acclaimed terrorists.”

“The channel continued their ridicule by insinuating that Europe ‘only had themselves to blame’ and that perhaps now Europe might ‘feel close-up the fear and horror that the Syrian people have endured over the past 5 years, created by the interferences of their (European) politicians’,” the March 30 statement by ARCHumankind added.

 “These acts committed by Jihadist militants are acts of heinous violence and the Iranian State television implying that ‘European decision-makers are supporting terrorist acts’ can only be seen as an incitement for the continuation of the Jihadi aggression against Europe.”

فروردین  -تلویزیون رژیم 

“Whereas the European institutions have unduly decided to forget the well-documented co-operation of the Iranian authorities with the creation of an Al-Qaeda branch in Iraq in 2001 and the Syrian regime logistical support to this organisation from 2003 up to 2011 – in the vain hope this memory erasing exercise would make the theocracy to behave better – the insulting attitude of the Iranian authorities vindicates the point of view of all those who warned against this kind of appeasement attitude.”

Continued Russian bombings of civilians blamed for jeopardizing the fragile peace talks

Residents carry banners and opposition flags as they march during a protest in Aleppo

Syria’s main opposition bloc has given warning that attacks by government forces in Aleppo province could stand in the way of the peace talks under way in Geneva.

The warning was sounded by the Higher Negotiations Committee (HNC), which sent a 17-strong opposition team, including three rebel leaders, to the Swiss city for talks.

Salim al-Muslet, HNC spokesman, said the opposition was waiting for reaction to the developments in Aleppo and other provinces.

'It is important for us to see the lifting of sieges of children starving to death,' she said.

'Since last night, big massacres have taken place in Syria and nobody is doing or saying anything.

'We do not know if the international community is completely blind or they do not want to do anything. We are here to know if they are keen to do anything - then we are waiting for them.'

Iran, the Islamic State, and the Perversion of Islam

Maryam Rajavi

It seems that for all our progress in social and human development, with each new generation radical factions emerge, shaking the world with their ability to convince ordinary people to commit unspeakable atrocities.

We reflect on recent attacks in San Bernardino, carried out by invoking God and religion, with the same bewilderment that confounded us amid the many senseless cruelties of the 21st century. We struggle to understand how such wanton violence could be conceived by human minds and spread like wildfire. And, of course, we set ourselves to right it, asking how we can combat this most current version of extremism and prevent new forms from plaguing the world.

The breed of extremism that we face today is a lethal cocktail of medieval barbarism and modern-day fascism. It is a worldview that shuns political tolerance, promotes misogyny, and, of course, glorifies violence. This specific brand pursues the implementation of Sharia and its draconian punishments. It has never had any connections to Islam, and there is clearly no place in the modern world for such a worldview.

However, it is a worldview with contemporary precedent. Ever since Ruhollah Khomeini came to power in 1979, Tehran championed itself as a successful model, which fundamentalists could follow in order to gain stature, power, and sovereign legitimacy. This presents a tantalizing message to Sunni extremists like the Islamic State– why can they not create their own “Islamic” State when Shiite fundamentalists have already done so?

While the conceptual origins of this extremist ideology took shape in the early years of Islam, it only turned into a formidable global force when fundamentalism gripped Iran in the aftermath of the 1979 revolution.

The regime that replaced the Shah—who was also detestable and undemocratic—began exporting Islamic fundamentalism on an unprecedented scale almost overnight. High-profile hostage-takings, bombings, suicide attacks, and assassinations became the norm as the mullahs in Tehran began building their own version of a theocratic state.

In these early stages, Shiite terrorist factions, including militias in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and others were directly formed by the Iranian regime. Without such state sponsorship from Tehran, their clout and influence would have quickly evaporated and they would have vanished. The vicious ideology and proliferative model grew increasingly lethal as its proponents gained access to veritable troves of military, diplomatic, political, and propaganda resources within the sovereign state borders of Iran.

So began the first modern-day “caliphate”—years before al-Qaida’s first attack burned in Yemen, and a full three decades prior to the rise of the Islamic State.

Many assume that Sunni fundamentalism is a unique phenomenon, entirely separate from the dogmas espoused by the Shiite mullahs in Tehran, but the differences are ancillary. In fact, Sunni fundamentalists have found tremendous strength under the political and spiritual umbrella of the Iranian theocracy. Both share the same ideological building blocks: the establishment of a religious state, which implements Sharia by force.

There is considerable evidence that the regime in Tehran has armed and financed Sunni extremists at various times and locations. Not only is Iran a long-standing sponsor of Hamas, but also as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said recently, “ISIS was created by Assad releasing 1,500 prisoners from jail, and Maliki releasing 1,000 people in Iraq who were put together as a force of terror.” Tehran is the known puppet-master of both.

In recent years, the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Sunnis in Iraq and Syria at the hands of the Iranian regime and its proxies has provided a wellspring of sociopolitical sustenance for the Islamic State. Iran is propping this extremist hydra up on all sides, and finding new and creative ways to reinvigorate the beast as our security and intelligence missions stride in its wake. If Iran is one of the linchpins that legitimize the global Islamic extremist threat, what is to be done?

History tells us that nothing is more dangerous for fundamentalism and extremism than democratic and moderate ideals. This has been made clear in Iran, where the regime’s suppressive tactics find their chief targets are the moderate Muslim factions, including the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).

To meet with true success, the current military campaigns and intelligence operations in the region must be complemented by the promotion of an interpretation of genuine Islam that is both democratic and tolerant. Only through a nuanced but unambiguously affirmative strategy that provides lasting moral and physical support to the people of Iran and the region in their quest for freedom and moderate leadership will we escape the echoes of history’s darkest narratives.

Maryam Rajavi is the president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which seeks the establishment of a democratic, secular, and non-nuclear Iran.

The road to defeating ISIS runs through epicenter of Islamic extremism in Iran

Ali-Safavi

By Ali Safavi

Published December 14, 2015

FoxNews.com

The heinous terrorist attacks in San Bernardino 12 days ago and in Paris last month were clear reminders of the growing threat of Islamic extremism. This vicious ideology continues to take new physical forms - once Al Qaeda, now ISIS. Their goal is to create an Islamic "state" capable of enforcing Sharia law by force and unwinding humanity's democratic achievements.

While the Sunni variant of fundamentalism desperately seeks to achieve this objective, the Shiite version in Tehran is well on its way. It should be confronted, not engaged.

Hotspots like Syria, Iraq, and Yemen have become a breeding ground for ISIS. In all of them, Tehran's fundamentalist regime - the world's largest state sponsor terror  plays a key role in the mayhem.

The Iranian regime’s regional agenda is, in the words of its Supreme Leader, “diametrically opposed” to that of the U.S.

In fact, after the deadly Paris attacks, Tehran's officials and media quickly blamed France itself, with some suggesting that the French "deserved" these attacks because Paris supported ISIS against Syrian dictator Bashar Assad - a key Iranian ally.

Tehran is now trying to push a new narrative. For it, ISIS is a blessing in disguise because it conveniently justifies its destructive involvement in Syria and other countries. Now, the mullahs are attempting to convince western governments to join them in backing Assad. That is a dangerous proposition.

Yet in the aftermath of the nuclear deal, some in the West are optimistic about the theocracy being more open to political reforms. But the facts and the evidence do not support this perception. Instead of changing course in the region, Tehran is even more adamant that others should follow its destructive policies.

And if improved human rights are a sign of moderation, the situation in Iran has in fact worsened significantly under the supposedly “moderate” president Hassan Rouhani.

A new United Nations report says in the first nine months of this year, more than 690 people were executed in Iran, “likely putting the execution rate during the first half of 2015 at its highest in some 25 years.” This month, Tehran was censured for the 62nd time by the United Nations.

The U.N.’s special rapporteur Ahmed Shaheed made a chilling reminder that juveniles continue to be executed by the regime, and Amnesty International has called Iran one of the last remaining executioners of children in the world.

Women continue to be treated as second-class citizens. Last year, dozens of women had acid splashed on their faces because they were seen as violating the regime’s strict veiling laws.

Young girls are prevented from attending certain university courses like business management and English translation. And, the parliament (Majlis), under Rouhani, has passed a series of laws further marginalizing and disenfranchising half of the population.

Journalists, bloggers and opposition activists are routinely arrested by the regime. In one high-profile incident, a young blogger, Sattar Beheshti, was killed under torture.

According to the U.N. report, the regime continues to use a variety of torture methods, including the surgical removal of eyes and hand amputations - much like ISIS does in its "caliphate."

So much for moderation!

The Iranian regime is controlled by the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei -- an equivalent of the "caliph" of the "caliphate." He makes all the final decisions that determine the strategic direction of the "Islamic" state. 

A few days after the nuclear deal was announced, Khamenei warned, “We will never stop supporting our friends in the region and the people of Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain and Lebanon. Even after this deal our policy towards the arrogant U.S. will not change.”

Iran's medieval regime cannot be reformed because any sign of moderation would provide an opening for the emergence of popular demands, which would mature into protests for democracy.

Many leading observers agree that the real alternative to fundamentalism lies within the larger Iranian society, and not within the shrinking confines of a dying theocracy. Just as the curtain of communism finally fell in Eastern Europe by that region’s restive population, so can the curtain of fundamentalism in Iran.

Unless and until the U.S. government looks to solve the Iranian problem by falling back on the problem itself – the regime in Tehran – it will fail to instigate genuine change. It should start by challenging Tehran’s involvement in Syria and working to remove Assad from power as quickly as possible. That is the real solution to the growing threat of ISIS.

Ultimately, the answer to Islamic fundamentalism lies in the hands of the Iranian people and Iran’s organized opposition, which is led by a Muslim woman, Maryam Rajavi. The removal of the epicenter of fundamentalism in Iran will ensure that the world is free of the vile threat of extremism for good.

Ali Safavi is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, which seeks the establishment of a democratic, secular and non-nuclear Iran.

Gathering at NCRI headquarters in solidarity with the people of France

A number of political personalities, advocates of human rights, elected representatives of the people of France

Maryam Rajavi calls on all Muslims to unite against terrorism and extremism under the name of Islam

In a ceremony commemorating victims of terrorist attacks in Paris and in solidarity with the people of France held on Saturday, November 21, the Iranian Resistance’s President-elect Maryam Rajavi reiterated:

The November 13 tragedy demonstrated that there are two opposing fronts; freedom-loving people and advocates of democracy and separation of religion and state, tolerant and democrat Muslims versus tyrants, savages, fanatics, ISIS, Bashar Assad and the Iranian regime.

Mrs. Rajavi said: Muslims who believe in democracy are the most effective force which could fight and defeat the global danger of Islamic fundamentalism.

She called on all Muslims, particularly Muslims in France, to unite in a front against terrorism and extremism under the name of Islam.

In this solidarity event at the Iranian Resistance's headquarters in Auvers-sur-Oise, Mrs. Rajavi rejected the idea of cooperating with Assad to eliminate Daesh. She said: The very existence of Daesh from day one has depended on Bashar Assad and the Iranian regime. Two parties will be seriously hurt by Bashar Assad’s ouster, one is Daesh which would lose its breeding grounds. The other is the Iranian regime whose regional front would crumble and disintegrate.

Mrs. Rajavi said: On the one hand, Daesh slaughters dozens of young people in the terrorist carnage in Paris, on the other, the Tehran regime rejoices this anti-human crime and threaten that if France does not accept continued rule of Bashar Assad, more attacks will be on the way.

Memorial for Paris attacks victims in front of the Bataclan at 3PM today

Memorial for Paris attacks victims

Supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and activists of the Iranian Resistance will take part in an elaborate event in front of the Bataclan at 3 PM today (November 18) in memory of the victims of last Friday’s deadly terrorist attacks in Paris.

The scheduled event will include musical performances and singing, symbolic acts in memory of the 129 victims, and the laying of a wreath.

On November 16, Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, and officials and supporters of the NCRI held a minute of silence in Auvers-sur-Oise, north of the French capital, in memory of victims of the Paris attacks.