On the first anniversary of the death of terrorist-designated Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian people have been setting fire to posters of him, which shows how much of a failure the regime’s campaign to portray him as some kind of hero has been.
All across the cities of Tehran, Sabzevar, Nishabur, Mashhad, Lahijan, Doroud, Bandar Abbas, Hamadan, Noshahr, and Nour, defiant young people have been burning posters of Soleimani and supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
While in the cities of Tehran, Isfahan, Rasht, Ilam, Qazvin, Ahvaz, Kerman, and Hormozgan, People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) supporters have organised activities to demonstrate the people’s desire for regime change, an especially brave move given the intense presence of the security forces.
In Tehran, the MEK’s Resistance Units put up a massive poster of the Resistance leader Massoud Rajavi, with the slogan “Massoud Rajavi is our leader”, while in Isfahan they installed several posters of the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) Maryam Rajavi, with slogans like “The revolt of the November 2019 uprising will continue until the end of the mullahs’ rule” and “Rise up to overthrow the regime of the supreme leader”.
In many other places, the Resistance Units daubed anti-regime slogans on walls with spray paint, including “Down with Khamenei, hail to Rajavi,” and the “IRGC must be disbanded”. The Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) is the parent organization of the Quds Forces.
They also set fire to four IRGC Basij bases, which shows the people’s hatred of the suppressive paramilitary force, which is used to preserve the regime at any cost, which was seen most recently in the November 2019 uprising when 1,500 protesters were killed by the regime in just a few days.
Soleimani was killed in a US drone strike in Iraq on January 3, 2020, and the regime wanted to show the world that he was beloved in Iran, but the people started to disprove this from the start, burning his image and chanting “Soleimani is a murderer, just like his leader” during the January 2020 protests over the IRGC downing of a Ukrainian passenger jet.
The MEK wrote: “While for the regime, 2020 was a year of irreparable blows, the Iranian Resistance managed to expand its network, organize, and reorganize its supporters, despite the presence of an atmosphere of repression. People’s outrage toward the regime’s grows on a daily basis, and the regime is unable to handle the situation. 2021 is sure to have many more unpleasant surprises for the mullahs.”