Marking Nowruz in solidarity with the Iranian people and Resistance

Online conference featuring France’s elected representatives as well as social and political dignitaries – Auvers-Sur-Oise

Maryam Rajavi: Iranian society is like a powder keg waiting to explode at any moment
Iranians will boycott presidential election farce, seek a democratically elected republic.

On Saturday, March 27, 2021, an online conference was held to mark the Iranian New Year in solidarity with the people of Iran. Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), addressed the conference from her residence in Paris. Dozens of France’s elected officials and personalities joined the conference.

Speakers and participants included, Gilbert Mitterrand, President of the Mitterrand Foundation and former Member of the French National Assembly, Michèle Alliot-Marie, former French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Interior, and Defense; Rama Yade, former French Deputy Human Rights Minister, Alain Vivienne, former French Deputy Foreign Minister, Bishop Jacques Gaillot, Yves Bonnet, former governor and head of the French Security Services, Jean-Pierre Béquet, former Mayor of Auvers-sur-Oise; Jean François Legaret, former mayor of Paris 1st district, and member of the Ile de France Regional Council; former members of the French National Assembly: Senator Alain Néri, Judge Francois Colcombet, Emile Blessig, Jean Philippe Maurer; Anne Ferreira, Former MEP; Dominique Attias, President of the European Bars Federation, Former Vice-President of the Paris Bar Association; former and current Mayors and electees in France: Sylvie Fassier, Armand Jacquemin, Jacky Duminy, Jean-Pierre Muller, Jean Claude Jegoudez, Guy Schmitt, Brigitte Allan, Jean-Louis Delannoy, Claude Krieguer, Bruno Macé, Gilbert Marsac, Jacques Feyte, Emmanuel Couesnon, and Jean-Louis Testud. Prominent French lawyers, Henri Leclerc, William Bourdon, and Gilles Paruelle; Pierre Bercis, President of the New Human Rights Association, Khalil Merroun, President of the Mosque in Evry, Sadek Abrous, chairman of the Valdoise Muslim Council, Dhaou Meskine, secretary general of the Council of Imams in France, and dozens of other French dignitaries and supporters of the Iranian Resistance also joined.

In her address to the conference, Mrs. Rajavi said that the clerical regime takes advantage of the rising COVID-19 death toll to paralyze the public and prevent popular uprisings. Nevertheless, she noted, Iran’s people have displayed their fury and outrage time and again in prison riots and during protests by workers, teachers, retirees, students, farmers, and Bazaar merchants. The state-run media describe Iranian society as a powder keg that could explode at any moment. The people of Iran also want to boycott the upcoming so-called presidential election because they want a free and democratically elected republic.

She referred to the widespread wave of young people joining the Resistance movement, the expansion of Resistance Units, and progress in their activities nationwide despite large-scale arrests, adding that the regime’s policy of demonizing the Resistance inside Iran had run aground. The regime’s Minister of Intelligence, who uses the Gestapo’s methods, recently confessed that the television programs broadcast against the Mujahedin-e Khalq (PMOI/MEK) had been funded and produced by the Intelligence Ministry, Mrs. Rajavi recalled.

The NCRI President-elect pointed to the ruling by a Court of Antwerp in Belgium confirming that the regime’s Ministry of Intelligence had planned and carried out the plot to bomb the NCRI gathering in France in June 2018, in full collaboration with the regime’s Foreign Ministry. Mrs. Rajavi emphasized that the regime’s survival hinges on suppression at home on the one hand, and the export of terrorism and meddling in the Middle East countries, on the other. She underlined that two months after the new U.S. President took office, the regime continued to violate the Iran nuclear deal further, proving that it has never given up its nuclear weapons ambitions.

Regarding Europe’s correct policy vis-à-vis the ruling religious dictatorship, Mrs. Rajavi underscored that Europe could play a significant role in countering the regime’s destructive policy in the region, preventing its access to nuclear weapons and curbing its missile program. Iranian society is simmering with discontent, she stressed, warning that offering concessions to Iran’s ruling mullahs under whatever pretext would encourage them to step up repression at home and export terrorism abroad. Under such circumstances, the people of Iran expect Europe to adopt a firm policy vis-a-vis the Iranian regime, to support their desire for human rights and democracy, to shut down its embassies in Europe, which act as facilitators for terrorist actions, and to expel its agents from European territory.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
March 27, 2021