Iranian dissidents maintain main rally in France calling for regime change in Tehran

Thousands of supporters of the world’s largest exiled Iranian dissident group rallied in France over the weekend, calling for the overthrow of Iran’s theocratic regime at an occasion that drew help from high-level worldwide figures reminiscent of former Vice President Mike Pence.

“[The] Iranian regime has never been weaker than it is today,” Mr. Pence, a 2024 presidential hopeful, informed a convention that occurred in coordination with the rally, which was orchestrated by the National Council of Resistance of Iran and its affiliate group, the exiled People’s Mujahedin of Iran (MEK).

“No oppressive regime can last forever,” mentioned Mr. Pence, whose remarks dovetailed with these of different outstanding Western figures, together with former British Prime Minister Liz Truss, former Canadian Premier Stephen Harper, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Guy Verhofstadt, a Belgian ex-prime minister and outstanding member of the European Parliament.

A central message of the convention was that appeasement of Iran’s authoritarian regime by Western governments, together with the United States, is unproductive and harmful. Mr. Pence and others addressed the convention close to Paris on Saturday, as hundreds of supporters of the MEK rallied within the middle of the French capital.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran and the MEK have places of work in a number of nations, together with the United States, and have a historical past of holding peaceable anti-regime rallies. However, political sensitivity surrounds the dissident motion, which Iran’s clerical authorities accuses of being a terrorist operation.

An Iranian diplomat was convicted of plotting to bomb an annual rally held by the MEK close to Paris in 2018. French authorities initially blocked the group’s plans for this weekend’s rally, citing considerations over safety. The ban was lifted by a French court docket on Friday, after a problem by the MEK.

What adopted on Saturday was a convergence of hundreds of supporters of the Iranian dissident motion in Place Vauban within the middle of Paris for the rally, in accordance with Agence France-Presse (AFP), which reported that backers got here from all corners of Europe.

A press release by the NCRI mentioned the main target of the rally was to indicate help for an ongoing rebellion in opposition to the regime inside Iran, to name for the “overthrow” of the regime and for “the establishment of a democratic republic in Iran.”

Mr. Pence informed the convention related to the rally that “this is not just another protest but the beginning of a revolution for freedom.”

“One of the biggest lies the ruling regime has sold to the world is that there is no alternative,” he mentioned, in accordance with AFP.

Mrs. Truss warned the convention of “a rising threat from authoritarian regimes across the world,” in accordance with the information company, which quoted her as saying: “Now is the time to turn our backs on accommodation and appeasement.”

Exiled MEK chief Maryam Rajavi, in the meantime, asserted that backers of the dissent motion have a alternative: “We either allow the religious tyranny and the mullah’s rule to persist, or we instigate a revolution, topple the mullahs, and establish a democratic republic with the separation of religion and state.”

“Fate is knocking on our door,” Ms. Rajavi mentioned, in accordance with remarks circulated by organizers. “Indeed, the answer is a revolution.”

The feedback coincide with frustration amongst many U.S. Republicans and a few Democrats who say the Biden administration is pushing a coverage of appeasement towards Tehran in hopes of luring it again into talks over its nuclear program — which the regime constructed up over many years in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

The administration’s makes an attempt to spur nuclear diplomacy with Tehran broke down final 12 months amid aggressive posturing by Iranian officers outraged that former President Donald Trump had pulled the United States out of an Obama-era worldwide nuclear take care of Tehran in 2018.

Despite its outreach to Iran, the Biden administration has upheld the State Department’s longstanding designation of Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism and saved in place a Trump-era designation of the Iranian army’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group.

Officials even have mentioned President Biden would use pressure if essential to cease Iran from buying nuclear weapons.

But that messaging has impressed little confidence amongst Iran hawks. And National Council of Resistance of Iran representatives have accused the Biden administration of downplaying assaults in opposition to the MEK in a bid to placate Tehran.

Ali Safavi, a consultant of the dissident motion, informed The Washington Times forward of the occasions in France that he believes the administration is “maligning the MEK unjustly to appease Iran’s brutal rulers.”

The administration has held a cautious posture towards the MEK and just lately downplayed a raid by the Albanian authorities on the exiled group’s secure home advanced within the Eastern European nation. The White House additionally turned a blind eye on the French authorities’s transfer to dam MEK from holding its rally in Paris.

While the MEK has had refuge in Albania lately below a deal that was really brokered by the previous Obama administration, Albanian authorities seized 150 pc units within the June 20 raid, throughout which a number of folks have been injured and, the group claims, a 65-year-old Iranian dissident was killed.

Iranian state-media praised the raid in Albania, with the regime-controlled Tasnim News Agency suggesting it was even carried out on the behest of Tehran, which labels the MEK as a terrorist group and has lengthy blamed it for looking for to topple the Islamist regime of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The MEK’s frustration with the Biden administration marks the newest within the group’s turbulent historical past with Washington, the place it was as soon as positioned on then faraway from the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organizations record.

The group has emerged with political affect in newer years, calling for Iranian regime change and aligning with the previous Trump administration’s coverage of most stress towards Iran.