By Staff

Iranian Americans gather in California to protest regime

Iranian Americans in California gathered in Los Angeles on Saturday in support of the Iranian people’s ongoing uprising and the opposition coalition National Council of Resistance of Iran’s (NCRI) fight to bring freedom and democracy to Iran.

They also condemned the regime’s downing of the Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 near Tehran, gave support to the “Resistance Units”, and called for those responsible for the massacre against Iranian protesters since November to be brought to justice.

At the event, protesters heard speeches from American dignitaries, including former Congressman Patrick Kennedy, retired Marines commandant General James Conway, Senator Robert Torricelli, Ambassador Lincoln Bloomfield, and Professor Ivan Sasha Sheehan, but the most exciting of all came from NCRI President Maryam Rajavi.

Rajavi sent a message to the convention about the downing of the Ukrainian airliner, which resulted in the deaths of 176 civilians, many of them Iranian, saying that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei always takes “hard revenge” from the people and threatens the Iranian opposition People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) in Albania.

However, she saw hope, especially with the elimination of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani and the ongoing uprising, both of which she said had delivered  “irreparable blows” to the regime and its export of fundamentalism and terrorism.

She said: “The regime had not had anyone like terror master Soleimani over the past 40 years. Single-handedly, he embodied the depravity and ruthlessness of the mullahs’ regime. All of the regime’s internal factions were united in supporting him.”

Rajavi further explained that the mullahs’ export of reactionism and terrorism is falling apart thanks to the uprisings in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, so a Free Iran is something that will come soon.

She said: “We seek to establish a democratic, free and progressive Iran based on people’s free choice and suffrage, based on the separation of religion and state, based on pluralism, gender equality, the autonomy of the oppressed ethnic groups, and the abolition of the death penalty. The political groups and parties, Iranian and non-Iranian, who benefit from the continued rule of the mullahs’ regime are reeling over the Soleimani’s termination.”

The other speakers at described the killing of Soleimani, a man who had murdered PMOI/MEK members, played a instrumental role in the regime’s crackdown against the uprising and was a terrorist, as an irreparable setback for the mullahs’ regime and a major step towards overthrowing the mullahs’ regime and creating a free Iran.