Mobilized. Coming from the four corners of Europe, thousands of members of an Iranian opposition movement demonstrated this Saturday in the center of Paris against the Tehran regime, supported in particular by the former American vice-president Mike Pence. Dozens of buses from Germany, Poland and Scandinavia in particular, some of which sported a “Free Iran” sign on their windshields, were parked near the rally, at the initiative of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) – one of the main opposition organizations outside Iran.
“I am here to be the voice of the Iranian people, for the people to be heard,” said Massoumeh Raouf, a former Iranian journalist and political prisoner, who says she escaped from prison in 1982 and arrived in France. in 1985, where she was a political refugee. Seeing this demonstration “will give morale to the Iranians on the spot”, affirmed to AFP this member of the NCRI, adding: “We do not want either the regime of the mullahs, nor the regime of the shah. The Iranians do not want to go backwards. We are moving towards democracy”.
Mike Pence’s support
Around her, many people waved the NCRI flag: a lion brandishing a sword in the middle of the colors green, white and red. Since 1980, after the Islamic revolution, an Arabic calligraphy meaning Allah has appeared on the Iranian tricolor. The organizers claimed to have brought together tens of thousands of people. According to the Paris police headquarters, the demonstration gathered 3,500 people.
At the same time, the NCRI, the political showcase of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK), an organization considered “terrorist” by Tehran, was holding a meeting in Auvers-sur-Oise (north of Paris ), in which the former American Vice-President Mike Pence, the former British Prime Minister Liz Truss or the former American Secretary of State Mike Pompeo took part. “Appeasement to the mullahs’ regime can lead to more bloodshed among our people and our resistance, lengthen the list of executions and fill more prisons,” NCRI chairperson Maryam Rajavi said.