Maryam Rajavi in the grand gathering of Free Iran- paris, July 1,2017

Honorable guests, fellow compatriots in Iran and abroad,

I am humbled by your love for freedom. And I pay respects to the distinguished personalities who have joined us in solidarity with a free Iran and freedom for Iran from five continents around the world.

Last year this time, the religious dictatorship ruling Iran was launching missiles at Camp Liberty to slaughter the members of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK). Now, with their victorious relocation from Camp Liberty Prison in Iraq to Albania, it is the Resistance that is advancing and on the offensive vis-à-vis the regime. We are all jubilant and proud to have PMOI members and officials in Albania joining us in this gathering just now.

Dear friends, 
Three major developments impact this gathering:
First, the relocation of thousands of MEK members out of Iraq which foiled the mullahs’ supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s scheme to annihilate the Resistance movement. Second, the failure of the policy of appeasing the regime by the United States and Europe. And third Khamenei’s defeat in the sham elections, which means the defeat of the regime in its totality.

 

 

Election farce: A setback for the regime in its entirety

By staging the elections sham, Khamenei planned to counter social uprisings and contain tensions within the regime. For this reason, he picked Mullah Ebrahim Raisi, a member of the Death Committee in charge of the 1988 massacre of 30,000 political prisoners.

Society’s readiness for an uprising, however, led to his defeat. This readiness against the totality of the regime was prompted by the campaigns of Iranian Resistance forces and supporters about the 1988 massacre, exposing Raisi’s background, and calling for the boycott of the sham elections. Hundreds of articles and interviews appeared in the state-run press and media to justify the massacre and Khomeini’s fatwa on the massacre was published for the first time 29 years after the massacre.

Khamenei’s representatives were saying that the MEK has resurfaced in the country. Intelligence and security officials were repeatedly boasting of the arrest of MEK members, who were attempting to sabotage the election.

In the final days before the election, Khamenei, cognizant of the volatile state of society, had to back down from his plan because he feared a repeat of the 2009 uprising.

Raisi’s candidacy was an attempt on the part of Khamenei to break out of an impasse. That Hassan Rouhani secured a second term does not change the status quo. Despite vigorous power struggle with the rival faction, Rouhani is complicit in all of the regime’s crimes against the Iranian people.

By “engineering” the election and fabricating the vote tally, the mullahs claimed more than 70 percent of Iranians had voted for their own executioners. A month later, however, the Assembly of Experts issued an official statement in which it declared that under the mullahs’ Islam, “people’s vote, demands, and views” have no importance whatsoever.

With this election, the mullahs had intended to improve the regime’s situation. But they divided and destabilized the regime. Now, they are planning and threatening to oust Rouhani.

By slandering the Mojahedin (PMOI/MEK), they sought to set the stage for bringing to power an executioner. But they failed again and showed how much they fear the MEK and the Iranian Resistance.

So, to the ruling mullahs, we say: Do whatever you can; say and make up whatever you want against our movement in your Friday prayer masquerades, but beware that the same people for years whom you claimed had been annihilated, are present in the scene and have come after you. The same people you hanged and whose graves you concealed have risen again as a new generation of rebellious youths who, with their calls for justice, have encircled your regime. The nooses you tightened around the necks of Iran’s valiant youths, have turned into rings of fire from which you have no escape.

Three fundamental truths

The winds of change have started blowing in our homeland. The ruling regime is in disarray and paralyzed as never before. Iranian society is simmering with discontent and the international community is finally getting closer to the reality that appeasing the ruling theocracy is misguided.

The same volatile situation speaks to three fundamental truths for obtaining freedom in Iran, and peace and tranquility in the region. First, the imperative of overthrowing the ruling religious dictatorship. Second, the regime’s overthrow is within reach. And third, a democratic alternative and an organized resistance exists, which is capable of toppling the theocracy in Iran.

Regime change, the only solution

Now, what do these words mean?

The first truth answers the question of what must be done to a regime which has held Iran and all Iranians in chains and is the force behind war and carnage in the region. Is this regime ever capable of reform? The answer is NO because claimants of reform were in office for 20 out of the total 38 years of the regime’s rule and they did nothing but serving the Velayat-e Faqih regime.

Would giving concessions ever change the behavior of this regime? The answer is NO. This is something that has been already tested repeatedly for the past three decades by the US and Europe. And is it possible to contain this regime? NO, the policy has been called containment, but in effect, it does nothing but obstructing the adoption of a firm policy against the regime. The conclusion is what the Iranian Resistance has emphasized since the outset and many in the world have reached today: The solution, and the only solution is regime change.

The revolts waiting to erupt across Iran pose the greatest threat to the regime

The second truth is that the regime’s overthrow is possible and within reach. Because the regime is besieged by extensive social discontent. As one of the commanders of the State Security Force has acknowledged, nearly 11,000 protests and demonstrations took place in Iran last year.

Look at those grave dwellers, the 10-million unemployed, the 20-million shanty-town dwellers and the 30 percent who are starving. The mullahs are encircled by these very people. The hand-picked candidates for the sham presidential election admitted that this is a regime of the 4 percent and that 96 percent of the people despise it.

Indeed, despite the regime’s deafening propaganda, the greatest threat to the regime is not a foreign enemy, but the very revolts in society, waiting to erupt.

The reality is that the overthrow of the religious dictatorship is possible and within reach because of the regime’s incompetence, including its inability to contain the country’s economic disintegration and environmental disasters, the inability to provide for the most basic needs of our enraged people, its inability to obtain nuclear weapons, and its failure to consolidate the regime.

Regime change is within reach because the mullahs have gotten themselves stuck in three wars of attrition in the Middle East. Their withdrawal from these conflicts in whatever form or shape will undermine their own existence.