Iranian Opposition ’s Annual Villepinte Gathering Calls for Solidarity with Protesters

Iranian opposition will be holding its annual gathering on June 30, 2018, at Villepinte near Paris, in a massive expression of support urging the world to adopt a firm approach toward the regime in Iran and recognize the rights of Iranian people and their resistance for a regime change in Iran and to establish freedom.

Hundreds of prominent political figures and activists from all over the world will show at the event to express their support for the goals of the convention.

This is an occasion which literally drives the Iranian regime furious every time. Therefore, the regime tries extensively to thwart the gathering by all means possible.

Last year, Javad Zarif, the regime’s Foreign Minister, called the presence of the Iranian opposition on French soil as a “moot point in Tehran-Paris ties.”

The Iranian democratic alternative’s formation can be seen in the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a long-lasting coalition of the Iranian political organizations and individuals, fully committed to replacing the despotic clerical regime with a secular republic.

The NCRI hoists Iranian flag with the “lion and sun” emblem, the ancient Iranian national symbol.  That is contrary to the mullahs’ anti-national “scorpion-brand” flag.

The core group of the NCRI is the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK), which is a prominent and well-organized opposition organization that has been fighting for decades for a regime change in Iran.

Iranian Opposition

The MEK was formed in 1965 and was the main participant in the struggle that toppled the former dictatorial monarchy. This organization enjoys some fifty years of experience of struggling for democracy against two dictatorial regimes, the monarchy and the current clerical regime. And, has contributed tens of thousands of martyrs and hundreds of thousands of tortured prisoners to the cause.

International policy makers, following an extensive and long-lasting rapprochement efforts trying to change the destabilizing behavior of the mullahs’ regime, are now coming to realize and admit that the policy has failed.  The policy took an immense price at the cost of the Iranian people and the MEK including many lost lives and an economy that is devastated.

These policy makers are now realizing the fact that, for decades, the Iranian Resistance and particularly its President-elect Mrs. Maryam Rajavi has had emphases on.  The same truth that foreign advocates of the resistance have repeatedly insisted upon during events such the annual Grand Gathering of the resistance in Paris.

The truth is and has always been that the mullahs’ regime is not reform able and is not able to change its behavior. In fact, any change in its behavior will immediately lead to rapidly cascading events that will ultimately cause the downfall of the whole regime.

Therefore, the only sound policy with regards to Iran is regime change at the hands of the Iranian people and their true and legitimate resistance.

Oftentimes, Mrs.  Rajavi has stated that overthrowing the regime is crucial to ensure security and peace in the region, and the only solution to free the people of Iran and establishing peace and tranquility in the region.

Addressing the “Free Iran” Grand Gathering in 2017, chairman of the King Faisal Center for Islamic Studies Prince Turki al-Faisal explained that what made Arabs and Iranians brothers, was not only geography, but the humanitarian relationships.

He added that all the (Gulf Cooperation Council) GCC countries and their neighboring Iran has always been living in harmony until the Khomeini revolution came into being in 1979. And, then there was an “external strategy… to replace the concept of stability with the concept of coup and conflict.”

During the same event, the prominent American politician and current security advisor to President Trump, Mr. John Bolton said that the outcome of the US policy review would determine that the regime would not last. He added that Tehran should not be allowed to control the arch from Baghdad to Damascus to Lebanon, and that “Iran’s regime was not only a nuclear threat but also a conventional threat to peace and security.”

Mr. Bolton stated that Tehran regime had not changed its behavior, so the only solution was to change the regime, and the US declared policy should be “regime change” and there was a viable opposition in that room, hinting at the Iranian resistance.

Mr. Rudy Giuliani, at the rally, emphasized that the only way for stability in the Middle East was through a regime change.

Over the past year, there have been lots of changes in the international policy regarding the Iranian regime. President Trump’s withdrawal from the “flawed” Iran Nuclear deal aka Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action(JCPOA), and demanding of a new deal which includes all the devastating activities of the mullahs’ regime, was a significant point indicating an emerging new firm policy as opposed to the old appeasement policy toward the clerical regime.

https://iranfreedom.org/en/2017/07/01/rudy-giuliani-free-iran-grand-gathering-1st-july-2017/

The new policy was followed by re-imposing economic sanctions aiming at bringing the mullahs to the negotiation table. These deeds were accomplished with a list, as long as an arm, of demands and conditions offered by Mr. Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, with the objective of changing the behavior of the fundamentalist regime which compared to the expired appeasement policy, is a much more realistic approach and more in the right direction while it is still far from the realities on the ground.

But, the most significant development after the last Iranian Grand Gathering was the “Iran uprising” during which people in more than 140 cities across the country poured in streets chanting for regime change.

The development surprised all the western countries and particularly disappointed the advocates of the appeasement policy.  That is because all their dreams of making more profitable contracts and ignoring the flagrant violation of humanitarian values by the regime were changed overnight to a nightmare, forcing them to disgracefully retreat and lose everything all together.

Mrs. Rajavi had repeatedly warned before that the ruling regime was in disarray and paralyzed as never before, plus the Iranian society is simmering with discontent and the international community was finally getting closer to the reality that appeasing the ruling theocracy was misguided.

It is time to join the “Free Iran” Grand Gathering to support the sole solution for freedom in Iran and peace in the region by backing the NCRI and Mrs. Rajavi’s 10-point plan for the Iran of future.