Excerpt of Maryam Rajavi’s speech on the first anniversary of the rocket attack on October 29, 2015, on Camp Liberty by agents of the Iranian regime in Iraq
Dear sisters and brothers,
Greetings to all of you.
We have gathered to commemorate 24 PMOI heroes who lost their lives on October 29, 2015 when the clerical regime’s mercenaries fired 80 rockets at Camp Liberty.
The sacrifice of these 24 heroes and your perseverance in the face of that missile attack on October 29 shook the Iranian society:
From Zahedan to Evin and Gohardasht prisons, political prisoners rose to express their sympathies.
Iranian youths posted the photos of martyrs on the walls in several cities.
Friends and supporters of the PMOI staged a demonstration outside Evin Prison and condemned the missile attack.
On the international level, the US Secretary of State, the British Prime Minister, the UN Secretary General and many parliamentarians, church leaders and human rights advocates voiced their protest and outrage.
From this point on, the major relocation accelerated.
But why? What was that decisive factor that turned everything into your favor?
Everyone knows that your steadfastness and the blood of the martyrs was the basis for this victory, which was complemented by an extensive international campaign. As such, the major relocation became reality in the middle of that subversive blockade and demonstrated the prowess of your movement.
Indeed, how was it that you have become more united and more blossomed after the many tests of a long journey from Ashraf to Liberty and finally to Albania?
Was the secret to your success anything other than making sacrifices and being selfless?
Indeed, you have a new message which is the ultimate message of history. You have a new message which goes to the heart of the issue of liberating and emancipating the enchained humanity. You have arisen to break the chains of alienation. You have arisen to break the shackles of humanity’s solitude and bondage.
This is not a mere theory written on papers or uttered with words.
Our 24 heroes of October 29th bore witness to the truth of this message.
Khamenei was intent on massacring the PMOI in Camp Liberty. This was his definitive decision for which he prepared the grounds and requirements. He was driven not just by his infinite ruthlessness and vengeance towards the PMOI, but far beyond that by the need to lift his regime from the abyss of a debilitating crisis that has currently plagued it. He had only one solution: the destruction of the PMOI. As such, eight days after officially and publicly approving the JCPOA, he ordered the missile attack on Camp Liberty.
The damages inflicted by the missile attack were considerably less than what the assault had intended. So, your perseverance on October 29, 2015, marked the ruling theocracy’s military, operational, political and international defeat.
What is the meaning of this defeat?
It does not only mean that Khamenei failed to achieve what he was after. Because he was unable to destroy the democratic alternative, the deadlocks due to, and the ripple effects of, the regime’s retreat from its nuclear program will turn into existential threats to the regime.
These are the same threats which have been activated today, causing regime officials to warn of the danger posed by the PMOI.
Khamenei and the regime’s factions were under the illusion that by stepping back from their nuclear program, they could at least resolve the country’s economic problems. This, too, was a miscalculation. Because regardless of all the concessions made by the western countries, they will not prove effective because the country’s economic recovery requires further major retreats by the regime.
Hand in hand with Bashar Assad, the clerical regime has also committed the greatest crime of this century in Syria. It has poured billions of dollars of the Iranian people’s wealth into the inferno of this anti-human war. But, the situation in Syria has turned into a deadly quagmire for the regime and the regime has no conceivable way out of the deadlock it faces in Syria. For this reason, in recent months, more schisms have appeared within the regime factions over the continuation of the war and carnage in Syria.
But beyond what I just said, the greatest crisis engulfing the regime is the acute social discontent nationwide, which has kept the specter of an uprising over the regime’s many deadlocks and developments.
I want to say that now is the time for you to go on the offense. It is the time to build 1000 Ashrafs as bastions of resistance for freedom.
Hail to the martyrs of October 29
Long live freedom
