UK and European Leaders Offer Support as Iranian Opposition Prepares for Grand Gathering in Paris

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) will be holding its Grand Gathering in Paris, France, on July 1, 2017, with various conferences being held on the days leading up to the event. Leaders from the international community are sending messages of support as the gathering draws close, including members of the UK and European leadership.

Lord Carlile of Berriew and Lord Clarke of Hamsptead, two prominent members of the British House of Lords, sent messages of support for the upcoming Iranian opposition gathering.

This time the West ought to back Iranians who seek regime change

As the international community watched to see who would be pulled out of the ballot box in Iran’s Presidential election last month, many Iranians refused to participate in the process, seeing no real prospect for change in their country and not wanting to encourage the perception of legitimacy for the existing government.

Despite state media propaganda of a high turnout (which the regime has claimed at each of its sham polls), this time the online social sphere was full of images of empty voting stations and posters on walls calling for a boycott. The organized boycott was led by the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK), the principle opposition group to the Ayatollahs’ regime.

The country’s leading opposition group has continued to attract support throughout the past three decades, even after regime authorities attempted to destroy the group in the midst of a massacre of political prisoners, which killed 30,000 in the summer of 1988. It has also continued to accumulate supporters and organize activist demonstrations in the four years since Rouhani took office on promises of greater civil rights and less restrictions on cultural activities and free expression.