Arrest of MEK Supporters Is Sign of Iran Regime’s Fear of Organized Resistance

Written by
Mansoureh Galestan
Iranian Regime’s Court Sentences Seven Political Activists to Prison
Reports from Iran indicate the Iranian regime has started a new wave of arrest and issuing prison sentences for supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) and other former political prisoners.

The regime’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) raided the homes of several former political prisoners, MEK supporters and relatives of MEK members, along with relatives of political prisoners. Zahra Akbari, the wife of political prisoner Abolghasem Fooladvand; Dr. Hani Yazarlou, and his son, Hood; Ms. Sedigheh Moradi; Mehdi Khawas Sefat; Mohammad Wali Gholamnejad; and Ms. Farangis Mazloom, mother of political prisoner Sohail Arabi, have received prison sentences.

In addition, as the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) Security and Counterterrorism Committee highlighted in a statement on June 28, the regime has increased pressure on political prisoners and their families “following the publication of a statement by political prisoners exposing a clerical regime’s intelligence agent.”

“The goal was to break the prisoners and force them to express remorse and denounce the MEK and the Iranian resistance,” read the statement.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, NCRI President-elect, called on the United Nations Secretary-General and the High Commissioner for Human Rights to send an international delegation to visit the regime’s prisons and meet with prisoners and their families.

Riddled with crisis, the clerical regime desperately resorts to oppressive measures against the organized Iranian Resistance. As the NCRI wrote in its statement in this regard, “The desperate effort comes after the failure of the anti-MEK slanders and a fake petition signed by 8,000 so-called families of the MEK members and on the eve of the Iranian Resistance’s Free Iran Global Summit in solidarity with the Iranian people’s uprising.”

 

The failure of the regime’s disinformation campaign and fake news against the MEK, particularly as the “Free Iran Global Summit” draws closer, has left the clerical regime no other way but oppression. This will not only add to the public defiance to the regime’s oppressive policies, but it also highlights the pivotal role and impact of the MEK and the Iranian Resistance on the Iranian society.

Last month, a German court ruled in favor of the NCRI in a case challenging the content of a fake news article, published on May 13 in the Frankfurter Allgemeiner Zeitung, which had violated essential journalistic standards in presenting certain allegations as factual. In addition, the regime forged emails and the MEK’s “Mojahed” journal, which has not been published for a while, to pursue its demonizing campaign. The regime has been using those expelled from the MEK, under the pretext of “former MEK members,” but this method has also failed.

In this regard, the state-run Rahyaftegan website in an article wrote: “The office of Mr. [Mahmoud] Alavi, the honorable minister of security and intelligence, is working around the clock and has hired some of the MEK’s repentant defectors such as Soltani, Khodabandeh, Ezati, Hosseini, Karimdadi, Mesdaghi, Yaghmai, Pour-Hossain, and… By putting a lot of energy and of course, financially backing them, it uses them to psychologically confront the MEK, which is great, but is it enough?”

The regime’s 40 years of oppression, its export and funding of terrorism by plundering the national wealth, and now its criminal policy of herd immunity amid the COVID-19 pandemic and its relative cover-up has turned the Iranian society into a powder keg. The MEK’s Resistance Units’ activities expand across Iran, breaking the regime’s atmosphere of fear, and more people are being attracted to the MEK.

Given the key role of the Iranian Resistance movement, particularly the MEK Resistance Units’ role in leading the Iranian society toward freedom and democracy, the international community must stand with the Iranian people and their organized resistance. This year the “Free Iran Global Summit” will send a strong message of support and solidarity to the risen people of Iran.