Iran and Massacre of 30,000 MEK and Other Political Prisoners

By Jubin Katiraie

The US Senate voted almost unanimously last Thursday to impose new sanctions on Iran. The legislation cracks down on Iran’s activities including their missile development programs and human rights abuses. This is the first time that Iran has been targeted for violation of Human Rights.

“Not later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, and annually thereafter, the Secretary of State shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a list of each person the Secretary determines, based on credible evidence, on or after the date of the enactment of this Act (1) is responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights committed against individuals in Iran who seek (A) to expose illegal activity carried out by officials of the Government of Iran; or (B) to obtain, exercise, defend, or promote internationally recognized human rights and freedoms, such as the freedoms of religion, expression, association, and assembly, and the rights to a fair trial and democratic elections; or … “ Reads part of the bill

For the past 4 decades Iran has been one of the worst violators of Human Rights in the world. Since the 1979 revolution Iranian regime has been condemned 63 times by the UN bodies for violation of Human Rights.

Given the articles of the new bill about violation of human rights, and based on the actions of Iranian authorities in the past 4 decades, all the Iranian officials must be sanctioned.

One case in point is the massacre of MEK* members and other political prisoners which all of Iranian officials were involved. In 1988, the Iranian regime massacred more than 30,000 political prisoners, most of whom were members and supporters of the main opposition group, the People’s Mujahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK). All the current and previous officials of the regime were directly involved in the massacre. Khomeini, the supreme leader of Iranian regime issued a religious decree ordering the massacre. His intention was to purge the country of any opposition, notably the MEK. Khomeini's decree set up a committee of four men which were tasked with vetting the ideological standing of prisoners. Many prisoners were only questioned for a few minutes by the committee. Those refusing to renounce their affiliation with the MEK were sent to the gallows.

“Whoever at any stage continues to belong to the MEK must be executed. Annihilate the enemies of Islam immediately!…Those who are in prisons throughout the country and remain steadfast in their support for the MEK are waging war on God, and are condemned to execution … It is naive to show mercy to those who wage war on God,” reads part of the decree.

For more than three decades, Iran ignored the slaughter, until this year in the presidential election when Ebrahim Raisie one of the perpetrators of the massacre and a member of death committee, was selected as one of the main candidates. MEK supporters inside Iran carried out widespread campaigns revealing Raisie and his role in the massacre.

Immediately, the issue of massacre of MEK members surfaced, forcing regime officials, one after another, to confess to the bloodbath.

“Regarding MEK and all the militant groups, the ruling is the death sentence … Imam (Khomeini) has said this … their verdict is death sentence …” Ali Fallahian, the former Iranian intelligence Minister, confessed in an interview.

“First, you should bear in mind that their (MEK’s) ruling was death punishment; and if the religious judge did not sentence them (MEK) to death, his ruling has been illegal … so all of us should acknowledge that the verdict for a Monafeq [the term used by the regime to call a MEK member or sympathizer] is death sentence, this was both Imam’s fatwa and his verdict …” Fallahian said in the interview.

Last August an audio tape of a meeting between the late Ayatollah Montazeri, the former successor to Khomeini, and the death committee was revealed and shed light to the carnage. The news of the revelation was covered in the international media.

“The publication for the first time in Iran of an audio recording from nearly three decades ago has reopened old wounds from the darkest period in the Islamic Republic. In the summer of 1988, thousands of leftists and supporters of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) organisation were executed in a massacre of political prisoners.” The Guardian reported.

“I urge the UN High Commissioner on human rights to immediately set up an independent committee to investigate the 1988 massacre and subsequently put those in charge before justice. I urge the UN Security Council to make the arrangements for prosecution of the regime’s leaders for committing crime against humanity.” said Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the president elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in her message on the 29th anniversary of the massacre.

With adoption of the new bill the time has come to hold the mullah’s regime accountable for crimes against humanity.

“Full implementation of these sanctions against the Iranian regime must be completed with urgent actions against officials in charge of executions, torture and particularly the massacre of political prisoners in 1988. Topping the list is Ali Khamenei, the mullahs’ supreme leader.” Said Maryam Rajavi in another message.

More about MEK:

A Long Conflict between the Clerical Regime and the MEK

The origins of the MEK date back to before the 1979 Iranian Revolution., the MEK helped to overthrow the dictatorship of Shah Reza Pahlavi, but it quickly became a bitter enemy of the emerging the religious fascism under the pretext of Islamic Republic. To this day, the MEK and NCRI describe Ruhollah Khomenei and his associates as having co-opted a popular revolution in order to empower themselves while imposing a fundamentalist view of Islam onto the people of Iran.

Under the Islamic Republic, the MEK was quickly marginalized and affiliation with it was criminalized. Much of the organization’s leadership went to neighboring Iraq and built an exile community called Camp Ashraf, from which the MEK organized activities aimed at ousting the clerical regime and bringing the Iranian Revolution back in line with its pro-democratic origins. But the persistence of these efforts also prompted the struggling regime to crack down with extreme violence on the MEK and other opponents of theocratic rule.

The crackdowns culminated in the massacre of political prisoners in the summer of 1988, as the Iran-Iraq War was coming to a close. Thousands of political prisoners were held in Iranian jails at that time, many of them having already served out their assigned prison sentences. And with the MEK already serving as the main voice of opposition to the regime at that time, its members and supporters naturally made up the vast majority of the population of such prisoners.

As the result of a fatwa handed down by Khomeini, the regime convened what came to be known as the Death Commission, assigning three judges the task of briefly interviewing prisoners to determine whether they retained any sympathy for the MEK or harbored any resentment toward the existing government. Those who were deemed to have shown any sign of continued opposition were sentenced to be hanged. After a period of about three months, an estimated 30,000 people had been put to death. Many other killings of MEK members preceded and followed that incident, so that today the Free Iran rally includes an annual memorial for approximately 120,000 martyrs from the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran.

The obvious motive behind the 1988 massacre and other such killings was the destruction of the MEK. And yet it has not only survived but thrived, gaining allies to form the NCRI and acquiring the widespread support that is put on display at each year’s Free Iran rally. In the previous events, the keynote speech was delivered by Maryam Rajavi, who has been known to receive several minutes of applause from the massive crowd as she takes the stage. Her speeches provide concrete examples of the vulnerability of the clerical regime and emphasize the ever-improving prospects for the MEK to lead the way in bringing about regime change.

The recipients of that message are diverse and they include more than just the assembled crowd of MEK members and supporters. The expectation is that the international dignitaries at each year’s event will carry the message of the MEK back to their own governments and help to encourage more policymakers to recognize the role of the Iranian Resistance in the potential creation of a free and democratic Iranian nation. It is also expected that the event will inspire millions of Iranians to plan for the eventual removal of the clerical regime. And indeed, the MEK broadcasts the event via its own satellite television network, to millions of Iranian households with illegal hookups.

MEK’s Domestic Activism and Intelligence Network

What’s more, the MEK retains a solid base of activists inside its Iranian homeland. In the run-up to this year’s Free Iran rally the role of those activists was particularly evident, since the event comes just a month and a half after the latest Iranian presidential elections, in which heavily stage-managed elections resulted in the supposedly moderate incumbent Hassan Rouhani securing reelection. His initial election in 2013 was embraced by some Western policymakers as a possible sign of progress inside the Islamic Republic, but aside from the 2015 nuclear agreement with six world powers, none of his progressive-sounding campaign promises have seen the light of day.

Rouhani’s poor record has provided additional fertile ground for the message of the MEK and Maryam Rajavi. The Iranian Resistance has long argued that change from within the regime is impossible, and this was strongly reiterated against the backdrop of the presidential elections, when MEK activists used graffiti, banners, and other communications to describe the sitting president as an “imposter.” Many of those same communications decried Rouhani’s leading challenger, Ebrahim Raisi, as a “murderer,” owing to his leading role in the massacre of MEK supporters in 1988.

That fact helped to underscore the domestic support for the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, insofar as many people who participated in the election said they recognized Raisi as the worst the regime had to offer, and that they were eager to prevent him from taking office. But this is not to say that voters saw Rouhani in a positive light, especially where the MEK is concerned. Under the Rouhani administration, the Justice Minister is headed by Mostafa Pourmohammadi, who also served on the Death Commission and declared as recently as last year that he was proud of himself for having carried out what he described as God’s command of death for MEK supporters.

With this and other aspects of the Islamic Republic’s record, the MEK’s pre-election activism was mainly focused on encouraging Iranians to boycott the polls. The publicly displayed banners and posters urged a “vote for regime change,” and many of them included the likeness of Maryam Rajavi, suggesting that her return to Iran from France would signify a meaningful alternative to the hardline servants of the clerical regime who are currently the only option in any Iranian national election.

Naturally, this direct impact on Iranian politics is the ultimate goal of MEK activism. But it performs other recognizable roles from its position in exile, not just limited to the motivational and organization role of the Free Iran rally and other, smaller gatherings. In fact, the MEK rose to particular international prominence in 2005 when it released information that had been kept secret by the Iranian regime about its nuclear program. These revelations included the locations of two secret nuclear sites: a uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and a heavy water plant at Arak, capable of producing enriched plutonium.

As well as having a substantial impact on the status of international policy regarding the Iranian nuclear program, the revelations also highlighted the MEK’s popular support and strong network inside Iran. Although Maryam Rajavi and the rest of the leadership of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran reside outside of the country, MEK affiliates are scattered throughout Iranian society with some even holding positions within hardline government and military institutions, including the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Drawing upon the resources of that intelligence network, the MEK has continued to share crucial information with Western governments in recent years, some of it related to the nuclear program and some of it related to other matters including terrorist training, military development, and the misappropriation of financial resources. The MEK has variously pointed out that the Revolutionary Guard controls well over half of Iran’s gross domestic product, both directly and through a series of front companies and close affiliates in all manner of Iranian industries.

In February of this year, the Washington, D.C. office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran held press conferences to detail MEK intelligence regarding the expansion of terrorist training programs being carried out across Iran by the Revolutionary Guards. The growth of these programs reportedly followed upon direct orders from Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and coincided with increased recruitment of foreign nationals to fight on Tehran’s behalf in regional conflicts including the Syrian and Yemeni civil wars.

In the weeks following that press conference, the MEK’s parent organization also prepared documents and held other talks explaining the source of some of the Revolutionary Guards’ power and wealth. Notably, this series of revelations reflected upon trends in American policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran. And other revelations continue to do so, even now.

MEK Intelligence Bolstering US Policy Shifts

Soon after taking office, and around the time the MEK identified a series of Revolutionary Guard training camps, US President Donald Trump directed the State Department to review the possibility of designating Iran’s hardline paramilitary as a foreign terrorist organization. Doing so would open the Revolutionary Guards up to dramatically increased sanctions – a strategy that the MEK prominently supports as a means of weakening the barriers to regime change within Iran.

The recent revelations of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran have gone a long way toward illustrating both the reasons for giving this designation to the Revolutionary Guards and the potential impact of doing so. Since then, the MEK has also used its intelligence gathering to highlight the ways in which further sanctioning the Guards could result in improved regional security, regardless of the specific impact on terrorist financing.

For example, in June the NCRI’s Washington, D.C. office held yet another press conference wherein it explained that MEK operatives had become aware of another order for escalation that had been given by Supreme Leader Khamenei, this one related to the Iranian ballistic missile program. This had also been a longstanding point of contention for the Trump administration and the rest of the US government, in light of several ballistic missile launches that have been carried out since the conclusion of nuclear negotiations, including an actual strike on eastern Syria.

That strike was widely viewed as a threatening gesture toward the US. And the MEK has helped to clarify the extent of the threat by identifying 42 separate missile sites scattered throughout Iran, including one that was working closely with the Iranian institution that had previously been tasked with weaponizing aspects of the Iranian nuclear program.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) led by Maryam Rajavi is thus going to great lengths to encourage the current trend in US policy, which is pointing to more assertiveness and possibly even to the ultimate goal of regime change. The MEK is also striving to move Europe in a similar direction, and the July 1 gathering is likely to show further progress toward that goal. This is because hundreds of American and European politicians and scholars have already declared support for the NCRI and MEK and the platform of Maryam Rajavi. The number grows every year, while the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran continues to collect intelligence that promises to clarify the need for regime change and the practicality of their strategy for achieving it.

How Iran's people get around the mullahs' social media censorship Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/08/how_irans_people_get_around_the_mullahs_social_media_censorship.html#ixzz4qkjTiA50 Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook

By Hassan Mahmoudi

Social media websites are fantastic tools that allow us to share the joy of fabulous news from friends, family, and neighbors, whether birthday greetings, wishes for the New Year, or thanksgiving.  We are able to sympathize with our companions when they share their sad stories.  We see news stories that can be disturbing, like the Syrian chemical attack, flash floods, blazes in forests, horrors in prisons, violation of human rights...  There is no question about it: advanced smartphone technology has played a key role in shaping the influence of social media.  But unfortunately, this fantastic tool, despite its easy use and access, is not available to all the people of the world.

In 2014, Reporters Without Borders designated 19 countries as "enemies of the internet" for actions ranging from social media censorship in Iran to North Korea walling its citizens off from the global web entirely. 

Despite the "enemies of the internet" designation of shame, only six countries actively block social media networks around the world.

Iran is the leading country that blocks its citizens from accessing internet.  In Iran, the internet and social media apps are heavily restricted and censored, because the government views any form of internet freedom as a threat to its mullah regime.

Iran bars social media and internet, yet it has long been a battleground there between the jubilant Iranians who seek freedom and the authorities who feel they must protect the regime from dangerous influences that could topple it.  Websites and social media have been blocked in Iran since huge antigovernment protests exploded after the disputed presidential election in 2009.

In the absence of a free and unrestrained press in Iran, users inside the country utilize Twitter to bypass state censorship mechanisms and challenge government narratives aiming at concealing the brutality of the government's violent crackdown on the protesters.  They also use a social media app called Telegram to discuss news and politics.

According to the recent report by the National Council of Resistance of Iran, as the regime in Iran faces a variety of crises, the deputy public prosecutor said concerns about cyberspace have become extremely worrisome for Tehran.

Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei is cited in this report as saying, in his usual violent language, that cyberspace is the "killing ground" of the country's youth, in reality meaning that this is where they learn the truth about the regime ruling Iran.  The mullahs claim to be concerned about the youth and Islamic values and how cyberspace activities and social media undermine them, but the reality is, they are thinking of themselves.

With all the media assets at its disposal, why can't the regime properly confront this threat?

The truth is that concerns about "religion and faith" are not the regime's concerns, as its own officials have in interviews acknowledged the fact that improper posts are blocked by Telegram administrators.

"More than 30% of these Telegram channels are involved in criminal activities against the country's security and disrupting the entire nation," said Iran's deputy public prosecutor, Abdolsamad Khoramabadi.

Of course, the main target of these remarks are the Telegram channels belonging to the Iranian opposition People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK).

"[W]e are left incapable on the internet.  The supreme leader has said time and again that this cyberspace is uncontrollable. ... [I]t is unacceptable to have 8,000 orders in this regard and not being able to do anything," Khoramabadi said.

This official also admits that the MEK will continue its activities even without Telegram, yet this platform has provided the MEK the means to accelerate the pace of its efforts.

In addition to speed, the Iranian people having access to MEK criteria has left the regime terrified.

"The MEK Telegram channel inside Iran is very active[.] ... [A]ll the regime's opponents are providing the people all their books and written material through this online platform.  If you seek to purchase them, you have to pay huge amounts of money.  If you wanted to publish a book, it would be very demanding, but on the internet, it is quite easy," Khoramabadi added.

While the Iranian regime can completely block these websites, why has this issue reached the media?

The regime in Tehran is truly facing an impasse in the face of Telegram.  It can't completely block the website, as it needs the platform for its own purposes, and it also cannot block only certain channels.

If Iran blocks Telegram in its entirety, it will come with heavy political and social impacts, leaving this regime facing 40 million angry users.  Furthermore, this will not resolve the entire issue, and these users will most certainly find another platform.

The Iranian regime has time and again negotiated with Telegram's managers to block the MEK website and associated channels, only to be rejected each time.  This has left Tehran facing an impasse.

Either accept the MEK's vast network with all its grave consequences, or pay the ultimate price of blocking Telegram.  The latter would raise even more questions.

Hassan Mahmoudi is a human rights advocate, specializing in political and economic issues relating to Iran and the Middle East.  @hassan_mahmou1

Trump sanctions set stage for necessary regime change in Iran

With the president’s signature on H.R. 3364, formally known as the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act of 2017, the Trump administration — eager for legislative accomplishments in the wake of the GOP failure to repeal the Affordable Care Act — can take credit for turning the page on failed Obama-era policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

The bipartisan passage of the long-anticipated sanctions bill by both houses of Congress allows the administration to take aim at rogue regimes in Iran, Russia and North Korea. Disagreements over U.S. policy toward Russia notwithstanding, the White House can be confident that legislators overwhelmingly support confronting threats emanating from Iran and North Korea and are prepared for even stronger measures to curtail the influence of these dangerous regimes.

The White House should now build on the successful passage of sanctions legislation to push for regime change in Tehran as an appropriate next step.

Trump administration surrogates can remind the American people that the White House first put Tehran on notice for engaging in regional destabilization shortly after Trump took office, pursued comprehensive sanctions targeting Iranian ballistic missile programs and directed the State Department to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organization, thereby blacklisting it from the global economy.

The latest sanctions legislation effectively accomplishes this latter goal by extending all terror-related sanctions to the entirety of the IRGC as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group. The question now is how far the Trump administration is willing to go to address the Iranian threat.

This question arose in June when the sanctions bill encountered delays, and it arose again in July when the White House, for a second time, certified Iranian compliance with the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The move surprised many seasoned Iran experts familiar with Tehran’s belligerence, particularly given the president’s campaign pledges to scrap the porous agreement altogether.

In fairness to the White House, the day after certifying Iranian compliance with the Obama nuclear deal, the administration announced that it planned a thorough review of U.S. Iran policy. Some critics of the nuclear agreement believed that simply tearing it up on day one was not the best way to proceed.

But virtually all analysts agree that steps must now be taken to address the significant shortcomings of the JCPOA. The agreement’s weaknesses and omissions — the result of Obama-era eagerness to secure a deal at any cost — are well known on both sides of the aisle.

Trump’s embrace of the sanctions legislation may be an indication that he intends to adopt a more strategic policy toward Iran that would force concessions from the Islamic Republic or even encourage the transition to a new, democratic system of government. 

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson previewed this possibility in June and some Iran analysts have suggested that the Trump administration’s assertive posture toward Tehran points in this direction. But Trump, Tillerson and others must now pay attention to how they plan to facilitate regime change via “elements inside Iran” to ensure a permanent solution to the nuclear issue and other matters.

The July 1 gathering in Paris of tens of thousands of Iranian expatriates committed to democratic change, supported by senior members of the president’s own party, was sufficient to remove any doubts about the likelihood of regime change being successful. It was clear to all in attendance that there is a democratic alternative to the ayatollahs and regime change is within reach.

At the Free Iran rally, Maryam Rajavi, president of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), characterized the then-pending blacklisting of the IRGC as necessary to facilitate a domestic uprising against a weakened Iranian regime. Recent protests suggest that ordinary Iranians have tired of the regime’s civil and political repression, human rights abuses and adversarial relationship with global powers, leaving them vulnerable to a "Persian Spring."

But Rajavi emphasized that it will take more than a single package of sanctions to ensure success for the resistance movement. Now that obstacles to the IRGC’s terrorist designation have been overcome, it is time to discuss how the U.S. and its allies can further undermine Iran’s hardline paramilitary and curtail its foreign influence. 

With provocative ballistic missile tests and harassment of American naval vessels in the Persian Gulf becoming a near routine occurrence, the Trump administration hardly needs a reminder of the importance of confronting the IRGC. Now the White House must decide whether it is prepared to bring an end to the regime that created the hardline paramilitary organization. 

By taking assertive actions and supporting the Iranian opposition, Trump can signal not only his displeasure with JCPOA but also write the next chapter in U.S. policy toward Iran by building on the successful passage of congressional sanctions legislation.

Tehran’s rogue status and lack of legitimacy presents the White House with a unique opportunity to further isolate the Iranian regime and deny it the resources to suppress its own people the next time they rise up and demand change. The question is whether the administration is willing to seize the opportunity and push for regime change in Tehran.

Ivan Sascha Sheehan, Ph.D., is director of the graduate programs in Global Affairs & Human Security and Negotiations & Conflict Management in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Baltimore. Follow him on Twitter @ProfSheehan.

The Nationwide Protests of Nurses in Different Cities of Iran

NCRI - The nurses’ nationwide protests were held on Sunday, August 6, 2017, in accordance with previous calls in front of the Ministry of Health and Universities of Medical Sciences in Tehran and other cities across Iran.

Nurses launched the rally to protest against a plan called “Training Hospital Nurses.”

The Iranian regime wants to use this self-made plan to introduce to hospitals the Basij forces or those who have no nursing education as nurses to enter the hospitals. While holding banners and placards, protesting nurses called for the cancellation of the project.

In Tehran, the security forces and police led the nurses to the park next to the ministry of health to ask them introduce their representatives for talks and negotiation.

The health ministry's security guards blocked the roads to the ministry hours before the start of the rally by placing fences, blocking the gathering of nurses in front of the ministry.

The high council of nursing and nursing authorities also called for to stop the “training hospital nurses” plan while holding placards and banners. Nurses refer to this plan as anonymity plan.

Iran: Crackdown Increasing on Border Porters

International organizations must condemn repressive measures

On the night of July 31, Iran’s repressive forces opened fire on a group of porters around a village near the city of Sardasht, western Iran, leaving one porter by the name of Azad Mina-Abduli seriously wounded.

The day before a group of porters, who strive to make ends meet through delivering and selling goods, were attacked by border police. One of the porters was killed and two others left seriously wounded.

Prior to this on June 25 another porter by the name of Karim Mohammad Aminzadeh from the city of Sardasht lost his life after repressive forces opened fire. Another porter, Mohammad Ahmadiyan, was seriously wounded.

On June 29 two other porters from the cities of Sardasht and Piranshahr were also seriously wounded as repressive forces opened fire and a landmine exploded.

More than 68,000 porters are working in Iran’s border provinces, of which 16,000 to 18,000 are in Piranshahr and Sardasht, reports indicate.

These porters are attacked and shot at as they are forced to resort to this type of hard work to make ends meet for their families. This is taking place at a time when according to Iranian MP Hossein-Ali Haji Doleigani $25 billion worth of goods are smuggled each year, meaning three times the country’s entire construction budget.

Smuggling goods and currency has led to 800,000 more people becoming unemployed (State-run media – June 19, 2016). These are heavy contracts controlled by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and other security and intelligence entities.

At a press conference in London on March 7 the Iranian Resistance blew the whistle on 90 ports, meaning 45% of all of Iran’s ports, are used for massive smuggling efforts. These ports are mainly placed at the IRGC’s disposal.

The Iranian Resistance calls on all the people, especially the youth in border areas, to support the hardworking porters, and support and express solidarity with the victims’ families.

The Iranian Resistance also calls on all international labor organizations to strongly condemn the mullahs’ regime for its crimes against Iran’s hardworking laborers.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
August 3, 2017

BEFORE ANYONE FURTHER APPEASES IRAN...

by Heshmat Alav

After decades of appeasement policy regard Iranian regime and disappointment of emerging a moderate faction from within the regime, the condition is changed. Even the whisper of regime change in Iran can be heard by the policy makers.   For apologists of appeasement policy, who, by accident!!!, have vast economic benefits in Iran, ‘regime change’ is the most hatred topic

and scramble to find ways of stopping the rising tide of desire for democracy and regime change in Iran.  

Heshmat Alavi, a political activist wrote an article in Forbes over the topic.   

The pro-Iran deal camp is recently making much noise about how the Trump administration and critics of the pact, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), are making rightful complaints of the text failing to address Iran’s destructive belligerence in the Middle East.  

These are valid concerns, considering the fact that even if the deal remains intact come October’s decision by President Donald Trump to find Iran in compliance or not, the mullahs are hell-bent to continue wreaking havoc and expanding influence across the region.

The pro-Iran deal camp claim Washington has no evidence to hold Tehran in violation of the JCPOA terms. Not true.

• Tehran has exceeded its heavy water production cap, necessary for a plutonium nuclear bomb,
• testing more advanced centrifuges,
• illicitly procuring highly sensitive nuclear and ballistic missile technology in Germany, according to Berlin’s intelligence services,
• surpassing its uranium enrichment cap, another key non-compliance factor

The pro-JCPOA camp also argues this deal has prevented Iran from becoming the next North Korea. This is partially true and misleads only the uninformed reader. A deal very similar to the JCPOA, led by the Clinton administration, was signed with North Korea and ended up in dismal failure. This left the world with a rogue state now equipped with at least 20 nuclear bombs, intercontinental ballistic missiles and the technology to miniaturize a nuclear warhead in its payload.

While the JCPOA was intended to keep Iran away from nuclear weapons, why shouldn’t Washington lead the West in demanding Iran curb its further belligerence, such as advances in its ballistic missile drive, increasing executions and atrocious human rights violations, and stirring mayhem in the Middle East?

Iran must be held responsible for "its missile launches, support for terrorism, disregard for human rights, and violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions," U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said Tuesday.

Speaking of this flashpoint region, legitimate concerns exist over Iran establishing a “Shiite crescent” stretching from Afghanistan to the Mediterranean. Important to note is the fact that JCPOA flaws, and the Obama administration’s desperate nature to sign a deal as a foreign policy legacy, provided Iran a windfall of billions to stoke its support for the Assad regime in Syria.

“Iran has been helpful in Iraq by fighting the Islamic State,” is how The New York Times describes Tehran’s campaign in its western neighbor, failing to even mention how Iran-backed Shiite militias and death squads have launched massacres, killing sprees and forced displacements targeting Iraq’s Sunnis and other minorities. While Iraq was a melting pot of peoples of different backgrounds living intertwined in peace and for centuries, Iran’s fueling of sectarian wars has created a dangerously wide rift of hatred.

Iran’s measures in supporting Yemen’s Houthis in their illegitimate fight against an internationally recognized government, funding of the Lebanese Hezbollah and supporting the Afghan Taliban as an ally against the US add all the more reason for strong action against Tehran.

In parallel fashion, the pro-appeasement camp continues to seek ties between Washington and Tehran, similar to the “working relationship” established between former US top diplomat John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Iran apologists are quick to criticize current US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for refusing to meet Iranians, while easily brushing aside the undeniable truth that Tehran usurped its warmed relations with the Obama administration to concurrently prop up the Assad regime and its massacring of innocent Syrian women and children, especially with chemical weapons.

Another question Iran apologists have allowed Tehran to go by never answering is this: Why do the mullahs continuously insist on such a politically and economically expensive nuclear program while sitting on the world’s second largest natural gas reserve and fourth largest crude oil reserve?

If the mullahs truly sought the better interest of the “Iranian nation,” as they have claimed for the past forty years, why don’t they turn off the lights on their nuclear program and reap in all the incentives and lucrative economic contracts that will most definitely follow?

And why the sudden regime change-phobia on Iran? Yes, many critics correctly point out the fact that regime change policies in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya have gone south. Yet why do these critics fail to go the distance and carefully evaluate the main reason behind these failures?

Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya lacked any solution and alternative to replace their ruling states with true democracies. This is not the case with Iran.

The Iranian opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a coalition of numerous dissident groups and individuals, led by its charismatic President Maryam Rajavi, has a ten-point plan for the future of Iran.

Universal suffrage, pluralism, individual freedoms, abolition of the death penalty, separation of church state, gender equality, rule of law, commitment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, peaceful coexistence and a non-nuclear Iran all meet the modern democracies in the West.

The NCRI, with the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) as its core member, has been gaining serious momentum in the past few months. Senator John McCain, Chairman of the US Senate Armed Services Committee met with NCRI President Rajavi in April. Last month hundreds of international dignitaries and over 100,000 members of the Iranian Diaspora voiced support for regime change in Iran in a massive Paris rally.

And as the Trump administration is weighing its comprehensive Iran policy, a high-profile delegation of US senators recently visited Maryam Rajavi and PMOI/MEK members in Albania. This visit sends strong signals as Rajavi and the PMOI/MEK are the legitimate flagbearers of regime change in Tehran.

originally published in the   forbes

IN SOLIDARITY WITH IRAN’S YOUNG GENERATION ON INTERNATIONAL YOUTH DAY

August 12 marks International Youth Day to recognize and draw attention to the issue of “Youth Building Peace”. It celebrates young people’s contributions to conflict prevention and transformation as well as inclusion, social justice, and sustainable peace.In Iran, however, the atmosphere of growth and advancement for the younger generations have been eliminated by the Iranian regime’s suppression of their freedom of speech and the press,

closure of universities, sending young people to war, and plundering the public’s wealth. Thus Iranian youths have found no opportunity for contributing to global peace.

A population of 23 million people between 15 to 29 years of age has made Iran one of the world’s largest young nation.

This young nation, however, faces soaring unemployment as one of its main problems. Almost 15 million people have no jobs, at least 4.5 million of whom are university graduates. [1] In 1986, almost 70% of university graduates could find jobs shortly after leaving school. By 2011, that rate dropped to less than 50%. [2]

That is, more than 50% of Iran’s educated are unemployed while the rest are employed in menial jobs such as construction workers, street peddlers, repairmen, etc. which are not compatible with their professional training and studies.

Under such hopeless circumstances, the majority of Iran’s at least 14 million [3] drug users are young men and women. The average age of addiction in Iran has dropped to 20, according to reports published by state media. [4]

The number of people suffering from drug addiction has more than doubled since 2011, according to a survey by a drug control group. [5]

However, the figures published by the state should be considered as minimum with the actual figures being considerably higher. Disappointingly, the Iranian regime has no short or long-term plans to contain the unbridled spread of addiction especially among the young populace.

Experts argue that easy access to cheap narcotic drugs has contributed to the horrific number of drug addicts in Iran. It is common knowledge that narcotics can be purchased much faster than a loaf of bread.

Unfortunately, the regime in Iran and specifically its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) are actively involved in drug trade and distribution as they find this as one of the most effective ways to quell and paralyze the country’s disgruntled and rebellious youth, posing an existential threat.

In addition, the human rights situation in Iran has been constantly deteriorating over the past 39 years. The clerical regime has a long history of crackdown on youths for demanding their basic rights. Atena Daemi, Arash Sadeghi, Majid Assadi, Golrokh Iraei, Ramin Hosseinpanahi are amongst the countless people who have been suffering long years in jail for daring to stand up for their own and their people’s rights.

Iran holds the highest rate of per capita executions in the world. Despite increasing international censure, executions are carried out relentlessly on a daily basis hitting an unprecedented record by hanging 101 prisoners in July 2017, alone.

The majority of those executed were under 30 years old including two young men, 24 and 27, who were hanged in public. In a controversial act of execution, a man who was arrested as a minor was hanged in Adelabad Prison of Shiraz, southern Iran. Execution of Alireza Tajiki was carried out despite wave of international criticism at Iran’s human rights violations.

In a recent study, a third of all 16 to 25-year-olds said they would leave the country, if given the opportunity. Iran ranks world’s first in brain drain with the flight of 150,000 elites per year.

Those who cannot escape the inferno created by the mullahs in Iran, however, are awaiting any opportunity to settle their score with the mullahs.

In a recent case, Asghar Nahvipour, a young Iranian athlete, beat up a mullah who was disturbing a young woman in a metro station in south Tehran. Eyewitnesses say he was fired at point blank range by the police while he was crying out, “We don’t want these mullahs. We don’t want this Islam. What kind of a country is this? What kind of Islam is this?”

The news of this arbitrary murder outraged the nation and aroused great sympathy.

Tributes to the victim poured in on social media, with many youths writing, “The heroes do not die”, “Fly high hero, you will be never forgotten” or “we will continue your path.”

These mottos bespeak of the determination of Iran’s courageous youth to realize a humane future for themselves and the whole nation. The International Youth Day is an appropriate opportunity to call on the international community to support their demands and help them reach the peaceful society they deserve.

As we celebrate the young people building peace across the world, lest forget the young men and women who dream of a world with equal human rights.

originally published in the  iran-hrm

IS REGIME CHANGE TRULY THE CORRECT IRAN POLICY?

by  Heshmat Alavi 

By ending Obama’s era, the policy of appeasement regarding the Iranian regime was changed to a tougher one and even to uttering ‘regime change’ in Iran. How realistic and true this policy could be, is the theme of the piece by Heshmat Alavi, a political activist who focuses on Iran and the Middle East.Following the recertification of Iran’s compliance with a nuclear deal aimed at curbing its controversial nuclear program,

there is quite a stir over the Trump administration possibly adopting a regime change policy in the face of Tehran’s belligerence.

There are those who favor such a trajectory, while Iran lobbyists and apologists have promptly argued otherwise, saying war should not be an option and citing ongoing campaigns in countries across the region to back their opinions.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s strong position of supporting regime change in a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee sent shockwaves in Tehran and beyond.

“Our policy towards Iran is to push back on (its regional) hegemony, contain their ability to develop, obviously, nuclear weapons and to work towards support of those elements inside of Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition of that government,” he said.

Secretary of Defense James Mattis, known for his “Iran, Iran, Iran” description of the source of Middle East dilemmas, followed suit.

“Until the Iranian people can get rid of this theocracy, these guys who think they can tell the people even which candidates they get a choice of. It’s going to be very, very difficult,” Mattis said in a special interview.

It is broadly assumed that the diplomatic pressure and sanctions initiative embarked upon by the White House and Congress are aimed at serving a regime change objective in Iran. The next necessary step would be to make this policy crystal clear to Tehran and all relevant parties.

Such strong statements made by Tillerson and Mattis dig deep into the Iran dossier and realize one stark, and very positive, difference between Iran and its neighbors. In contrast to others, the Iran regime change enterprise enjoys a long-term plan presented by a grass-rooted opposition movement, symbolized in the Iranian opposition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).

Unfortunately, the campaigns launched in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and even Syria, after former US president Barack Obama said the dictator Bashar Assad must go, all lacked this very necessary element, and the world remains witness in horror of the drastic consequences. Millions left killed and injured, scores more displaced, trillions of dollars literally wasted and entire cities and countries leveled. And the only benefactor has been the mullahs’ regime…, being an entirely different topic of discussion.

Tehran lobbyists stationed in Washington are heard saying Iran also lacks any such organized opposition capable of delivering anything different from what we have witnessed in other countries. For years they have been inaccurately mischaracterizing the NCRI as lacking adequate organization, support and resources.

To spare time, one needs only refer to this coalition’s recent July 1st convention in Paris, held annually, for a glimpse of its social base and international backing. Over 100,000 members of the Iranian Diaspora, joined by hundreds of international dignitaries from all walks of life representing a conglomerate of political trends, shows how the NCRI, and its President Maryam Rajavi, have garnered growing support both inside Iran and abroad to bring about regime change and establish freedom and democracy in their homeland.

Advocates of the appeasement approach vis-à-vis Iran will further continue quarreling over how the West must continue its effort of seeking internal Iranian elements of moderation.

Ever since the 1980s a slate of senior Iranian regime officials, including former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, former presidents Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, and now Hassan Rouhani have been naively dubbed as “moderates” or “reformists.”

What deserves comprehension after 35 years of deception is the fact that Iran’s “moderate/reformist” pretext has long surpassed its expiration date. While the Iranian people are yearning for change, there is no such appetite, capacity or potential in Tehran’s ruling mullahs’ apparatus.

• Mousavi supported the regime’s unnecessary continuation of the war against Iraq, devastating the lives of millions,
• Rafsanjani supervised a domestic cleansing of dissident voices, and a string of assassinations and terrorist plots abroad,
• Khatami presided over the 1999 student uprising crackdown and advanced Tehran’s clandestine nuclear weapons drive,
• and Rouhani’s first term as president rendered the execution of over 3,000 individuals, and the trend continues as we speak with over 100 executions in July alone. Rouhani has also blessed a dangerous spike in ballistic missile advancements by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).

As a result, any form of moderation or reform is nothing but a hoax misused by Tehran to continue misleading and deceiving the international community, while threatening the rise of hardliners if the likes of Rouhani are deserted.

Returning to the decidedly significant statements made by Tillerson and Mattis, it is high time such game-changing rhetoric receives deserved backing from President Donald Trump himself.

Iran must feel the heat from Washington’s policies, especially as Tehran prolongs its Middle East belligerence plaguing Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, and endures its harassing of the US Navy in Persian Gulf waters.

America must take the lead in facing Iran over its fundamentalist nature both inside the country and abroad. The Trump administration should begin architecting an international coalition to back the NCRI’s drive for regime change and peaceful democratization of Iran.

After four decades of utter atrocities, it is the Iranian people’s right to live in peace and prosperity.

I am a political/rights activist focusing on Iran & the Middle East. I also write in Al Arabiya English, and contributed to The Hill, Algemeiner and Raddington Report. I tweet @HeshmatAlavi

originally published in the    forbes

Fearing Consequences of New Sanctions, Rouhani & Salehi Acknowledge Maintaining Facilities to Make Nuclear Bombs

National Council of Resistance of Iran

Rouhani's introduced his new cabinet to parliament on Tuesday. On one hand, his remarks reveal his fear of the consequences of new sanctions for human rights abuses, export of terrorism, and ballistic missile development. On the other hand, they also illustrate that the mullahs’ regime has never abandoned the nuclear weapons program.

In his comments, which were primarily aimed at testing the will of the opposite side, he said: “If Americans want to return to those experiences, Iran certainly in a short time – not weeks and months but hours and days - will return to a more advanced situation than the start of negotiations.”

Four days earlier, Ali Akbar Salehi, Rouhani’s deputy and head of the regime’s Atomic Energy Organization, made similar statement: “We created a lot of bridges to return to the previous conditions (prior to the nuclear agreement) much quicker and better.” Salehi, who was directly involved in JCPOA talks, said: 'Nuclear activity is going on better than the past in the area of enrichment and heavy water production and the new design of the Arak plant in cooperation with the Chinese and the extraction of uranium' (State-run Mehr News Agency - August 8, 2017).

The mullahs regime continues its nuclear projects, which from the onset have had no other goal than to obtain a nuclear bomb, by using unnecessary and unjustified concessions in the nuclear deal, in particular by abusing the clause related to continued nuclear research.

On April 21, 2017, the National Council of Resistance of Iran disclosed at a press conference in Washington DC that the Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research (SPND), the organ responsible for weaponization of the clerical regime’s nuclear program, continues to work with all its sub-groups even after JCPOA implementation. The press conference revealed an unknown site in Parchin, which is being used by the “Center for Explosives, Blast Research and Technologies (METFAZ)”, one of the SPND sub-groups, to research the weaponization of the nuclear program. According to this information, this site, known as 'Pajouheshkadeh (Research Institute)' in the regime, has become a major activity site for METFAZ.

The brutal suppression and violation of human rights, the development of a nuclear bomb and the export of fundamentalism and terrorism are three essential pillars for the survival of the mullahs’ regime. It is trying to continue to pursue these policies through blackmail and lies and using the flexibility and appeasement policies of some Western governments. A decisive policy and all-embracing sanctions against the regime for human rights violation, export of terrorism, and missile and nuclear projects is necessary to end the crisis that is taking place today in the Middle East and other parts of the world, for which the Iranian regime is the main source.

National Council of Resistance of Iran – Foreign Affairs Committee
August 15, 2017