Organisers said that the rallys aim was to condemn the inclusion of the main Iranian opposition group, the Peoples Mojahedin, in the list of terrorist organisations.
Iranians at the rally in downtown Stockholm openly showed their anger and dismay at this weeks report by U.S.-based Human Rights Watch alleging physical abuse of dissident members by the Peoples Mojahedin.
This is a biased report and I have read enough already about every single person making these wild allegations against the Mojahedin to know who is behind all this, said Sima Tahmasebi, a mother of two who travelled for two hours to come to the rally. Iranians have no illusions about this so-called human rights group. When the mullahs massacre protesters in Ahwaz and Mahabad, Human Rights Watch calls these reports allegations, but then writes 28 pages against the Mojahedin based on well-known lies by their detractors and calls these facts. Stop shifting the focus from the real problem, which is the mullahs regime in Iran.
Ali Yarandi, an engineer from Malmo who spent four years in Evin Prison before escaping from Iran, expressed even stronger feelings. They sit in New York and telephone 12 agents of mullahs intelligence in Europe and put out a long report, without even having the decency to ask the Mojahedin to give their responses, he said. Congratulations, Human Rights Watch. You have won yourselves many friends in VEVAK headquarters in Pasdaran Avenue and VEVAK interrogators must be having a field day with your report, which they will use to break resistant political prisoners.
He was referring to the Persian acronym of Irans Ministry of Intelligence and Security, the Islamic regimes secret police.
Others said the report was deliberately timed to tarnish the image of the Iranian opposition when there was growing support in Europe and the United States for the removal of the PMOI from the terrorism list.
Iranians at the rally expressed opposition to foreign military intervention in Iran and voiced support for democratic change in the country. They said the terror tag on the Peoples Mojahedin was a major barrier to such change.
Participants in the rally in Stockholms Sergel Square also denounced pressures exerted on Iranian refugees and asylum-seekers, and they called on the Swedish government to provide accommodations for those who have fled the Iranian regime.
Opposition leader Maryam Rajavi addressed the rally via a satellite link-up from her home north of Paris. She said Iranians would boycott the upcoming presidential election. Show of reform is dead. This time, the mullahs have no way out, she said.
Rajavi urged the international community to declare the election farce illegitimate and stand with the Iranian people as they stand for democracy and freedom.
