MEK’s Free Iran rally in Ashraf 3, Albania receives widespread coverage in Western media
The Iranian Resistance’s annual Free Iran conference, this year held for the first time in the headquarters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (Mujahedin-e Khalq, PMOI or MEK), known as ‘Ashraf 3’, in Albania, has yet again attracted incredible press coverage, which helps to spread the word of the viable opposition to the Iranian Regime.
Referring to the MEK’s Free Iran rally, CNS News wrote: “The [Iranian Resistance group, Mujahedin-e Khalq] MEK calls itself the democratic government-in-exile of Iran. Should the organization take control, it says it will establish […] President-elect Maryam Rajavi as Iran’s temporary leader until elections can be held. Rajavi has presented a ten-point plan that she says will restore freedom to Iran and balance to the Middle Eastern region, including gender equality, denuclearization, democratic elections, and the separation of religion from the state.”
In its coverage of the MEK’s Free Iran rally, Fox News said that Rajavi is the leader of the largest opposition group who says the only way to deal with Iran is to enforce more sanctions. In a report, they cited the ongoing widespread anti-regime protests in the US and across Iran.
The five-day event featured many prominent dignitaries and political figures who praised the work of the MEK in countering the Iranian threat and vowed to throw their support behind the MEK when they returned to their own countries. People like former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who accused the Iranian Regime of “crimes against humanity,” and said that its dictatorship could no longer be tolerated. He also called for other countries to come on board.
During the Saturday rally, Giuliani said: “Aren’t we now at the point in history when we can all stand up and say, ‘No more! No more murders, no more crimes, no more oppression. You have to go!’”
Others attending the event included former US Senator Joseph Lieberman, former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, former French Foreign and Defense Minister Michelle Alliot-Marie and a UK delegation led by Dr Matthew Offord MP.
Offord said: “The British delegation is here to remind our government of our obligations under international laws of human rights, I believe that we should follow the US example and proscribe the Iranian Republican Guard Corps as a terrorists organisation… There is a great appetite for regime change through peaceful means by Iranians and the NCRI’s ten-point plan – which seeks secular freedom, equality the rule of law and respect for human rights – shows that it will make for the foundation of a successful new government when the time comes.“
While the Washington Times wrote: “Iranian officials have targeted [the] MEK on a massive scale. Ashraf-3 includes a museum that details the torture and deaths of as many as 120,000 MEK supporters. In 2015, Iran launched a 40-rocket attack against Ashraf-2, MEK’s previous home in Iraq, leaving 24 dead. A car bomb attack on Ashraf-3 last year was foiled before explosives could be detonated.”
Much of the coverage also focused on the incredible job that the MEK has done transforming Ashraf 3, since they were relocated there as political refugees in 2016 as part of an international effort to protect them from persecution, including deadly missile attacks on their camps, by the Iranian Regime.
The Express, which covered the MEK’s Free Iran rally, wrote: “Its pleasant avenues, lined with trees and pre-revolutionary Iranian flags, frame modern homes and offices and give the appearance of the type of enclave favoured by wealthy ex-pats abroad. But its impenetrable security cordon signals the fact that this site, measuring two square miles, is a place of business: and the business is to replace Iran’s theocracy with a secular, democratic and West-facing government…. Its main conference centre, boasting Roman pillars and pre-pre-revolutionary emblems such as the golden lion, contains a no-expense-spared museum dedicated to the 130,000 members tortured and murdered in Iran since it became an Islamic Republic in 1981 – 30,000 in 1988 alone.”
The Washington Times, whose correspondent attended the MEK’s Free Iran rally, wrote: “The speed with which the heavily guarded town was built — complete with parks, conference halls, shopping centres, restaurants, swimming pools and a luxury hotel — was enough to make Mr. Giuliani marvel.”
Rajavi said, according to the Express: “Now, Ashraf 3 stands tall along this long journey, a journey that has had many new beginnings and revivals throughout. On this path, we endured ten years of blood-drenched perseverance at the besieged Camp Ashraf and another four years full of determination at a slaughter house called Camp Liberty (in Iraq). This marks another chapter in a great march towards freedom, towards a free Iran, towards a glorious destination, of course after undergoing enormous suffering and dedicating a roaring river of the martyrs’ blood.”
