Iran Focus

London, 29 Jun – In a panel discussion on Friday, June 29, the last before the National Council of Resistance of Iran’s Free Iran rally in Paris, several more political figures spoke about the Iranian opposition’s and MEK’s role and the protests that have been sweeping across Iran since the end of last year.

Mitchell Reiss, Ambassador and former Director of U.S. State Department Policy, opened the panel discussion with great positivity, pointing out that momentum is starting to shift towards to Iranian Resistance and the Mojahedin organization (PMOI) or MEK. He thanked Mrs. Maryam Rajavi and the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) for keeping faith in the cause and for bringing the realities of life in Iran to our attention.

By Jubin Katiraie

Iranian Resistance group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), has long been painted by Iranian Mullahs as a fringe group with little support from the Iranian people, but the Iranian uprising proves that to be false.

In December 2017, protests broke out in Mashhad over a draft budget that slashed subsidies for the poor and put more funding into Iran’s suppressive forces and malign military campaigns. At any other time, the Mullahs’ government might have quelled this protest, but the MEK stepped in to spread the protests across 142 cities in all of Iran’s provinces.

By Jubin Katiraie

Over the past four decades, one of the cornerstones of regime’s strategy to remain in power has been to push the idea that there’s no other alternative for the Iranian people than the current regime itself, so the people have to get along with it anyway.

In line with the strategy, regime claimed that it had physically eliminated the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) as their only rival. But when the organization continued to exist and stabilize, the regime launched a propaganda campaign this time, claiming out of weakness that the MEK has no place among Iranian people and that people will choose the Iranian regime over the MEK anytime.