Lethal international, economic and
social crises that has plunged the Iranian regime into the dilemma it is
currently facing on one hand, and the expanding support for the Iranian
opposition MEK that can realize regime change in Iran on the other, have all injected utter fear amongst Tehran’s mullahs.
US policymakers are coming closer to the
necessary solution of regime change to confront Tehran as the leading
sponsor of terrorism and human rights violator, as a regime that
oppresses its own people and threatens neighboring nations.
However, this regime change is different
from previous examples through military action and foreign war. In
Iran, considering the existence of an organized opposition with deep
social roots and a social base inside Iran, symbolized in the MEK, is able to realize this objective of toppling the mullahs’ regime.
Ahmad Jannati, head of Iran’s so-called Assembly of Experts admitted the most important issue for Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is the threat of this regime being overthrown.
“The enemy is thinking of toppling the
establishment and seeks to begin from within as they have not reached
any results from the outside,” he added.
Regime change by MEK?
On July 1st a
major rally
was held by supporters of the Iranian opposition National Council of
Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and MEK in Paris. Tens of thousands of MEK
supporters from all over the globe participated in this rally and heard
the speech of NCRI President Maryam Rajavi.
Well-known international dignitaries
such as former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former House Speaker
Newt Gingrich, former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton, Governor Ed
Rendell and a delegation from the US Congress also participated.
Dozens of other speakers also attended
from all four corners of the globe, including Europe, Asia, the Middle
East and Africa. All participants acknowledged the necessity of regime
change in Iran. This time there is no need for a foreign war, they
emphasized in their words.
The MEK and Iran’s organized opposition
is able to realize this change with the Iranian people that are
currently under suppression. All that is needed is for the MEK’s
struggle for freedom to be acknowledged by the international community.
Therefore, as the necessity for regime
change in Iran becomes further evident, this change is being at reach
and the existence of an organized alternative has left the Iranian
regime frightened more than anything else. Now more than ever before the
possibility of having this regime overthrown is at reach and the
Iranian regime is at its weakest status in years.
The adoption of a recent bill by the US
Congress against the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) is a correct step in
realizing change. However, what this resolution can materialize is these
articles being implemented to their fullest reach and evicting IRGC
from Syria and Iraq. This will send a major signal to Tehran about
regime change. The call to blacklist the IRGC was made years ago by the
MEK and Mrs. Rajavi. Many wars crimes in the Middle East, and especially
Syria, could have been prevented if this measure had been taken without
being delayed for years.
MEK has a history of struggling against
Iran’s former Shah Regime. However, due to the arrest of many MEK
leaders and senior ranks and 90% of the MEK leadership being executed,
the 1979 revolution was hijacked by the mullahs led by Khomeini.
During the 1979 revolution the limited
number of remaining MEK members were released from prison by the people.
However, as Khomeini’s vicious crackdown and killings began, the MEK
was forced to continue its struggle against the religious dictatorship
under Khomeini’s rule. In the summer of 1988 Khomeini issued a decree to
have all MEK members in prison massacred without any due process. MEK
members loyal to their beliefs were mass executed and buried in mass
graves.
More about the People’s Mojahdin Organization of Iran (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 1961.1
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.
Massoud Rajavi’s critical role in characterizing religious extremism
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 cohesive
organization, 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.
The 1988 massacre of over 30,000 political prisoners in Iran
