pasargad: September 2017

Friday, September 29, 2017

Q&A by Struan Stevenson, with PMOI website

Straun Stevenson speaks to the MEK website

Struan Stevenson, was a member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Scotland from 1999-2014. During that time, he chaired the Friends of a Free Iran intergroup, which became the centre of pro-democracy campaigns in Europe in support of human rights in Iran. He also chaired European Parliament’s official Delegation for Relations with Iraq. He has written several books on different topics including a book called Self Sacrifice, originally in English and translated to French and German, which explains about the Iranian resistance.

US Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley pushes for more nuclear inspections in Iran

UNITED NATIONS, AFP, 28 September 2017-- The United States pressed Thursday for the International Atomic Energy Agency to carry out more nuclear inspections in Iran, warning that failure to do so would make the nuclear deal with Tehran 'an empty promise.'

US Ambassador to the United Nations , Nikki Haley, said that some countries were trying to shield Iran from more inspections by the IAEA, which is charged with verifying Tehran's compliance with the 2015 nuclear accord.

'Without inspections, the Iran deal is an empty promise,' she said in a statement.

Haley's push for more inspections comes just 15 days before Trump must certify to the US Congress whether Iran is in compliance with the agreement.

'If the Iran nuclear deal is to have any meaning, the parties must have a common understanding of its terms,' Haley said in a statement.

'Iranian officials have already said they will refuse to allow inspections at military sites, even though the IAEA? says there must be no distinction between military and non-military sites.

'Now it appears that some countries are attempting to shield Iran from even more inspections.'

Although she named no countries, diplomatic sources said she was referring to Russia.

The German news broadcaster, Deutsche Welle reported on Tuesday, Sept. 26 that more than 100 Baha'i students who had taken up university admission exams and got passing grades earlier in the summer have been prohibited from enrolling in universities at the start of the school year in Iran due to their religion beliefs.
The deprived youths were all told that their 'files are incomplete'

when they approached to get their exam results after the results were published.
And after going to the authorities in charge of the examinations, most of them were told directly that the reason behind this disadvantage is their Baha'i faith, according to the so called Cultural Revolution. They were advised of apostasy if they wanted to continue education in Iran.

Earlier in September, the UN Secretary General sent the latest report of the Special Rapporteur on Iran’s human rights to the General Assembly for discussion. The August 14 report provides a detailed account of a series of serious abuses that were carried out by the Iranian authorities in the past year year.

But this year's report is unique compared with previous reports because the Special Rapporteur highlights the massacre of thousands of political prisoners in 1988. The report documents the direct involvement of senior Iranian officials and current ministers in carrying out and defending these mass executions as well as the authorities’ efforts to destroy evidence of mass graves and to harass, intimidate and prosecute those who seek truth and justice.

On September 21, the UN Security Council adopted a historic resolution proposed by the UK to bring Daesh to justice. According to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office statement, “the resolution was passed by the Security Council following a letter written to the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres from the Iraqi Prime Minister and Foreign Minister requesting international support of Iraqi efforts to bring Daesh to justice.”

This shows that Britain is in a strong position to lead the demand for justice for the victims of the 1988 massacre in Iran, if it has the political will and moral courage.

VIENNA, Reuters, SEPTEMBER 26, 2017 - The U.N. nuclear watchdog’s chief urged major powers on Tuesday to clarify a part of their nuclear deal with Iran dealing with technology that could be used to develop an atom bomb, an area Russia said the agency should leave alone.The 2015 pact between six major powers and Iran restricts its nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Compliance with those curbs is being verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano has defended the deal as a major step forward while declining to comment specifically on criticism of it by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has called the accord - reached by predecessor Barack Obama - “an embarrassment to the United States”.

But while Nikki Haley, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, has infuriated Tehran by saying the IAEA should widen its inspections to include military sites, diplomats say Russia has been trying to restrict the agency’s role by arguing it has no authority to police a broadly worded section of the deal.

That section bans “activities which could contribute to the development of a nuclear explosive device”. It lists examples such as using computer models that simulate a nuclear bomb, or designing multi-point, explosive detonation systems.

Unlike many other parts of the deal, the provision, known as Section T, makes no mention of the IAEA or specifics of how it will be verified. Russia says that means the IAEA has no authority over it. Western powers and the agency disagree.

NCRI - We need to stop ignoring Iran’s obstruction of nuclear weapons inspections, according to the former vice-president of the European Parliament.

Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a Spanish professor of atomic and nuclear physics, wrote an op-ed for the Washington Examiner in which he explained that Iran has a long history in obstructing investigations into its nuclear programme and this has not changed in the two years since the nuclear deal was signed.

Brussels-based International Committee in Search of Justice (ISJ) which seeks to gain justice for the victims of the 1988 Iranian massacre, wrote: “The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action effectively skirted this issue by making it theoretically possible for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to ask for and receive access to military sites, but only following a month-long process during which the Islamic Republic could work to erase evidence of past activities.”

US President Trump expands travel ban; North Korea, Iran, Venezuela among 'restricted' eight countries

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters upon his return to the White House in Washington, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2017

WASHINGTON , AP, 25th September 2017 -- Citizens of more than half a dozen countries will face new restrictions on entry to the U.S. under a proclamation signed by President Donald Trump on Sunday that will replace his expiring travel ban.
The new rules, which will impact the citizens of Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen — and some from Venezuela — will go into effect on October 18.
The restrictions range from an indefinite ban on visas for citizens of countries like Syria to more targeted restrictions. A suspension of non-immigrant visas to citizens for Venezuela, for instance, will apply only to certain government officials and their immediate families.

The announcement comes the same day as Trump's temporary ban on visitors from six Muslim-majority countries was set to expire 90 days after it went into effect. That ban had barred citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen who lacked a 'credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States' from entering the U.S. Only one of those countries, Sudan, will no longer be subject to travel restrictions.
'Making America Safe is my number one priority. We will not admit those into our country we cannot safely vet,' Trump tweeted late Sunday after the new policy was announced.

Ballistic missiles next to a portrait of Iran’s supreme leader in Tehran, Sept. 25.

He can decertify the accord as too dangerous to continue while renegotiating its worst aspects.

By Mark Dubowitz and David Albright

The Wall Street Journal, September 25, 2017 - Powerful voices at home and abroad are pressuring President Trump to give his blessing to his predecessor’s nuclear agreement with Iran. Mr. Trump has repeatedly pledged to renegotiate the deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or scrap it altogether. There is a way for him to highlight the agreement’s egregious deficiencies while showing his determination to improve the deal or leave it. We call this strategy “decertify, waive, slap and fix.”

The president should follow through on his commitments by refusing to certify the JCPOA under the 2015 Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act. That law requires Mr. Trump to certify every 90 days that Iran is fully implementing the nuclear deal and hasn’t significantly advanced its nuclear-weapons program. Additionally, he must certify whether the suspension of sanctions remains vital to U.S. national-security interests and proportionate to Iran’s efforts to terminate its illicit nuclear programs. The next 90-day deadline is Oct. 15.

Iran displays a new multiple-warhead medium-range missile dubbed the Khoramshahr at a military parade in Tehran on September 22, 2017

Missile test amplifies calls for Trump to kill nuclear deal

The Washington Free Beacon, September 25, 2017 - Iran's weekend test firing of yet another long-range ballistic missile is amplifying congressional calls for the Trump administration to formally declare Iran in violation of the landmark nuclear agreement, a move that would lay the groundwork for the United States to abandon the agreement.

Iran claims to have successfully test fired a new long-range ballistic missile in response to threats by the Trump administration to leave the nuclear accord.

President Donald Trump criticized Iran during his first speech before the United Nations last week, singling out the Islamic Republic as one of the leading global threats. The speech prompted tough talk by senior Iranian leaders and military officials, who vowed to boost the country's capabilities.

The latest ballistic missile test has amplified congressional calls for Trump to leave the deal and has provided grist to those inside the administration pushing for the president to formally declare Iran in violation of the nuclear deal due to these tests and other actions that violate the accord.

'Iran's missile test is further proof that the Obama-Khamenei nuclear deal has only served to empower and embolden the Islamist regime,' Rep. Ron DeSantis (R., Fla.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Washington Free Beacon.

Prisoner of conscience Soheil Arabi who had been on a 40-day honger strike, has now switched to a dry hunger strike to protest his detention.
The political prisoner is in severe health condition after a 40-day hunger strike.
“I cannot be silent when I see people enduring torture without ever committing a crime. Here is Evin Prison where freethinkers are being punished. Do not tell me to keep silent because remaining silent is the worst betrayal. I am not crying out to save my own life, I want you to hear the voice of our innocence. I want to convey the voice of all jailed freethinkers such as Manuchehr Mohammadali, Mahmoud Beheshti Langroudi, Ali Shariati, Yousef Emadi, Arash Sadeghi, Savada Aghasar and my other friends in Ward 7 whose crimes are knowing and expressing the truth. We were tried by judges who are the most corrupt human beings of our time. This is the third year that my daughter is going to school and I am not with her. I have gone on a dry hunger strike because I do not want her to see me in jail anymore,” his letter reads in part.
32-year-old photographer Soheil Arabi was arrested by Revolutionary Guards Corps forces in 2013 for publishing his views on Facebook. He sent an open letter from prison announcing that he went on a hunger strike on August 24 in protest to “charges brought against his family members by security agents of the Revolutionary Guards Corps”. He said he would not end his hunger strike until his mother and mother in law were cleared of the charges.

On September 4, the 45th Branch of the Court of Administrative Justice issued a decree to suspend and prevent the activities of Sepenta Niknam, the Zoroastrian member of the Yazd City Council, stating that the interim order was definitive, according to the state-run IRNA news agency report on September 21, 2017.
“The Yazd Governorate, because of it legal duty, has been following various legal proceedings regarding the case of this member of the Yazd City Council”, Mohammad Ali Talebi, the Political Assistant of the Yazd Governorate, said.
“Following a complaint filed with the Office of Administrative Justice, the legal response was submitted to the Court, which is awaiting consideration of this response and the Court’s opinion on this matter”, he added.
The Islamic Council of Yazd has 11 main members and seven permanent members, and Sepenta Niknam is a member of the 4th Council and current member of the Yazd City Council.

Press Release: Time to hold Iranian officials accountable for crimes against humanity

“The longest suffering victims of Iran's leaders are, in fact, its own people”

The UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran, Ms Asma Jahangir, in her latest interim report (A/72/322) drew attention to the deteriorating human rights situation in Iran as well as the impunity enjoyed by Iranian officials involved in the “1988 massacre”. In a matter of a few months, some 30,000 political prisoners were executed. Some of the perpetrators are holding key positions in Iran today.

The British Committee for Iran Freedom (BCFIF) welcomes the acknowledgement by the US President that “The longest suffering victims of Iran’s leaders are, in fact, its own people” and that “Iran’s people are what their leaders fear the most”.

Such an acknowledgement is a testimony to the correctness of our long-standing position that the international community must side with the people of Iran in their pursuit of freedom and democracy.

We also agree that the Iranian regime “has turned a wealthy country, with a rich history and culture, into an economically depleted rogue state whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed and chaos.”

Over the years our experience has shown that this is a regime which cannot be trusted at all. This fact has been reiterated over and over again by the actions of the regime. Its illicit nuclear activities and secret sites were exposed by the opposition. We believe in 2013 when the regime was forced to come to the negotiating table, the international community lost a unique opportunity to end the concern about Iran’s nuclear (BCFIF)

On Wednesday September 6, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, (PMOI/MEK) held its annual Congress. The Congress elected Ms. Zahra 58, as its new Secretary General.

The MEK is the main opposition to the Iranian regime, and it has been brutally suppressed by the Iranian regime. Over 120,000 MEK members and supporters have been executed by the regime. 30,000 political prisoners, a majority of them members and supporters of the MEK, were massacred in the summer of 1988 alone. Iran kept a lid on the massacre for three decades.

BRUSSELS, Sept. 25, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The International Committee In Search of Justice (ISJ), a Brussels based NGO, has published a new research report titled "Review of Iran's Nuclear Weapons-Related Conduct: Two years after the implementation of JCPOA and IAEA report on Possible Military Dimensions of Iranian nuclear program."

(http://isjcommittee.com/2017/09/isj-report-review-irans-nuclear-weapons)

Focusing on the past two years, the 24-page report drew upon publicly available information including the nuclear agreement (JCPOA), particularly its T-section, Tehran's position and replies in reference to "Final Assessment of IAEA on Past and Present Outstanding Issues regarding Iran's Nuclear Program", evidence of Iran's illegal procurements for its nuclear weapon and missiles programs, reports of its ballistic missile tests, and the April 2017 revelations by the opposition group, the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK) regarding a previously unknown location that might be involved in the nuclear weapons program.

Political prisoner Mohammad Nazari, who is on hunger strike in Gohardasht Prison in Karaj, was taken to a hospital outside of prison due to the deterioration of his health. But hospital officials have said that they have been instructed by the Judiciary not to examine him.
As a result of the hunger strike, the prisoner’s kidneys have stopped working and his liver has been seriously damaged. Mohammad Nazari has been imprisoned for the past 24 years. He went on a hunger strike in protest to the transfer of political prisoner to a maximum security section in Gohardasht Prison.

The Coroner’s Office of Tehran, capital of Iran, declared that it has registered the names of 12,159 women as victims of violence in four months.

The public relations of the General Department of the Coroner’s Office of Tehran Province announced that in the four months since the beginning of the Persian New Year (March 21, 2017) until July 21, 2017, it has registered the names of 33,362 people, 12,159 of them women, who had referred to the forensic centers of Tehran province due to injuries they suffered in physical fights. (The state-run Mehr news agency – September 23, 2017)

TRUMP CRITICISES NUCLEAR DEAL AFTER IRAN'S MISSILE TEST

President Donald Trump on Saturday pointed to a reported missile test by Iran to renew his criticism of the nuclear agreement it reached with the U.S. and other nations.Iran's Revolutionary Guard on Friday displayed its latest ballistic missile capable of reaching Israel and much of the Middle East. The U.S. opposes Iran's ballistic missile program and Trump signed a bill last month imposing penalties on those involved with it.

Video of the test firing of a Khoramshahr medium-range ballistic missile aired Friday on Iran's state TV. The time or location of the test was not mentioned in the report.

Trump tweeted Saturday about the public unveiling of the missile: "Iran just test-fired a Ballistic Missile capable of reaching Israel. They are also working with North Korea. Not much of an agreement we have!"

The nuclear agreement reached during the Obama administration doesn't strictly prohibit Iran from developing missiles.

Trump has suggested he might seek to renegotiate the nuclear deal or abandon it. He told the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday that the accord was "nothing short of an embarrassment" and the "worst one-sided deal perhaps in American history."

Officials have said Trump might use the Oct. 15 deadline for certifying to Congress whether Iran is in compliance with the nuclear deal to either declare Iran in violation or determine that the agreement is no longer in the national security interest of the U.S.

The tweet was one of several issued by Trump on Saturday covering a range of topics: athletes protesting at football games, Sen. John McCain's decision not to support the GOP health care bill, NBA star Stephen Curry and an event at the White House, Trump's support of Sen. Luther Strange in Alabama's GOP Senate runoff, and his pride in first lady Melania Trump representing the U.S. in Toronto.

originally published in thefrance24

The Commander of the Varamin Revolutionary Guards Corps announced the arrest of 30 girls and boys in a mixed gender party in the town of Varamin on Sepember 21, 2017, according to the state-run Mehr news agency.
Davoud Asghari said that agents entered a home in Varamin after getting information and identifying the area.
In the mixed gender party, more than 30 girls and boys were arrested and were handed over to judicial authorities for further investigation.

As the North Korea nuclear standoff and the future of Iran’s nuclear deal has absorbed an all-too enormous amount of international attention, a more important prism on Iran’s regional hostility must not go neglected.

During the United Nations General Assembly the controversial nuclear pact, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), took center stage once again. All the while Tehran has throughout the years overtly and covertly pursued a massive campaign hinging on meddling and extending its lethal ideology of Islamic fundamentalism across the Middle East.

The rendered atrocities can be witnessed across the region, especially in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon. This threatens the very fabric of the Middle East populace and bears the potential of plunging this flashpoint region into an abyss of proxy wars resulting in nothing but infernos of carnage.

Iranian regime President Hassan Rouhani speaks during an armed forces parade in Tehran, Iran, September 22, 2017. (File photo)

Istanbul, Reuters, September 24, 2017 - Iranian forces have launched war games in an area near the border with Iraq’s Kurdistan region, Iran’s state media reported on Sunday, a day before a Kurdish independence referendum in the region.

Turkey also said on Sunday its aircraft launched airstrikes against Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets in northern Iraq’s Gara region on Saturday after spotting militants preparing to attack Turkish military outposts on the border.

Iraq’s powerful neighbors, Iran and Turkey, strongly oppose the Kurdish vote as they fear could fuel separatism among their own Kurds. Iran also supports Shiite groups who have been ruling or holding key security and government positions in Iraq since the 2003 US-led invasion which toppled Saddam Hussein.

The Kurdistan Regional Government has resisted calls by the United Nations , the United States, and Britain to delay the referendum who fear it could further destabilize the region.

Iranian State broadcaster IRIB said military drills, part of annual events held in Iran to mark the beginning of the 1980-1988 war with Iraq, is centered in the Oshnavieh border region. The war games will include artillery, armored and airborne units, it said.

Clashes with Iranian Kurdish militant groups based in Iraq are fairly common in the border area.

Zolfaghar missiles are displayed during a rally marking al-Quds Day in Tehran

BY: Adam Kredo

The Washington Free Beacon, September 18, 2017 - A senior Iranian military leader claims the Islamic Republic has developed the 'father of all bombs,' a 10-ton bomb that is said to rival the United States' ‘mother of all bombs,' or MOAB, according to regional reports.
Iranian General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp's airspace division, claimed in an interview over the weekend with the country's state-controlled media that Iran has developed the 10-ton bomb and has the capability to drop them from aircraft.
The announcement coincides with other saber-rattling comments by senior Iranian military officials claiming that they have infiltrated the American military.
'These bombs are at our disposal, can be launched from aircraft, and they are highly destructive,' Hajizadeh was quoted as telling Iran's state controlled Fars News Agency.
Hajizadeh described the weapon as the 'father of all bombs,' a clear reference to America's recent use of the MOAB, of Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb, which is capable of delivering an 11-ton blast.

Demonstration in Tehran against corrupt financial institutions

Iran, Sept. 24, 2017 – Supplementary and latest report indicate that plundered shareholders of Caspian Financial institute who have been protesting round the clock in front of the country's judiciary since last week, expanded their rally to Hijab St. on Saturday, Sep. 23rd chanting anti-government slogans.
Some of the slogans are as follows:
'We have been running back and forth for past 10 months, but heard only lies.'
'Rouhani, Rouhani, let go of the US, and think about us.'
'Rouhani, Rouhani, let go of Syria, and think about us.'
'No to Syria, No to Lebanon, Only Iranian people.'
The plundered shareholders said they will continue with the sit-in demonstration until their money is redeemed by the IRGC backed Caspian Institution.

Iran displays a new multiple-warhead medium-range missile dubbed the Khorramshahr at a military parade in Tehran on September 22, 2017

TEHRAN (AFP) 23 September 2017 - Iran said on Saturday that it had successfully tested a new medium-range missile in defiance of warnings from Washington that it was ready to ditch a landmark nuclear deal over the issue.
State television carried footage of the launch of the Khorramshahr missile, which was first displayed at a high-profile military parade in Tehran on Friday.
It also carried in-flight video from the nose cone.
The broadcaster gave no date for the test although officials had said on Friday that it would be tested 'soon'.
Previous Iranian missile launches have triggered US sanctions and accusations that they violate the spirit of the 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers.
President Donald Trump has threatened to bin the agreement over the issue, saying that Iran's missile program could give it the technical knowhow for a delivery system for a nuclear warhead when a sunset clause in the deal expires in 2025.
He is due to report to Congress on October 15 on whether or not he believes Iran is in compliance with the nuclear deal.
If he decides that it is not, it could open the way for renewed US sanctions and perhaps the collapse of the agreement.
Trump said on Wednesday he had made his decision but was not yet ready to reveal it.

Iran said on Saturday it had successfully tested a new ballistic missile with a range of 2,000 km (1,200 miles)

By Andrew Hammond

EDITORIAL, September 24, 2017-- On Friday, Iran test-fired a new medium-range missile, carrying details of the launch along with video footage from a camera located in the nose cone of the rocket on state television. The Khorramshahr rocket is capable of being fitted with multiple warheads and has an estimated range of 2,000 kilometres. While the rocket launch was a success, the timing of the test is certainly no coincidence, with the government in Tehran being singled out, along with the regimes of Venezuela and North Korea, for words of condemnation at the United Nations General Assembly in New York by United States President Donald Trump.

Donald Tresident Donald Trump has sensibly insisted that the Iran nuclear deal—formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—has to be revised. The reaction in some quarters, mainly among many of the former Obama administration officials who negotiated this bad deal, has been horror. Unfortunately, the media have uncritically swallowed many of the false assumptions and naive arguments of the deal’s supporters, and the elite consensus is that the agreement must be preserved lest the White House bumble us into a crisis—or worse, another war in the Middle East.

Please. The accord is riddled with problematic provisions that essentially put Iran on a legal glide path to the bomb. The agreement’s various sunset clauses, its leaky inspection regime and Iran’s growing missile arsenal have all been subject of much discussion. Yet, one of the most dangerous aspects of the JCPOA that allows Iran to design and construct advanced centrifuges has largely escaped notice. Given the JCPOA’s permissive research and design provisions, Iran can effectively modernize its nuclear infrastructure while adhering to the agreement.

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Eleven years ago, Henry Kissinger famously said that Iran’s rulers must “decide whether they are representing a cause or a nation.” If the latter, Iranian and American interests would be “compatible.” As for the former: “If Tehran insists on combining the Persian imperial tradition with contemporary Islamic fervor, then a collision with America is unavoidable.”

Since then, Iran’s rulers have left no room for doubt. They’ve been aggressively spreading their Islamic Revolution and constructing what can only be called a new Persian Empire. That will surprise no one who has seriously studied the ideology of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic. What might: Their project has received significant support from the United States.

hortly after revealing the new Khorramshahr medium range ballistic missile to the public for the first time, Iran released a never before seen video showing a successful test of the weapon, but did not give a date or place for the footage. The new development will undoubtedly have an impact on whether U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration decide to scrap a deal with Iran over its controversial nuclear program, but it also underscores long-standing concerns that the Iranian authorities have been working with the North Koreans and other allies to skirt their international obligations.

Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), a military-political organization that commands immense influence on the country’s domestic and foreign policy, unveiled the Khorramshahr during a military parade on Sept. 22, 2017 as part of the country’s annual Sacred Defense Week. The events commemorate the country’s bloody war with Iraq between 1980 and 1988.

politicians, and people from the Iranian diaspora gathered outside the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Wednesday September 20, to protest Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s speech.

Amir Emadi, the spokesman for the Organization of Iranian American Communities (OIAC) noted that Rouhani should not be accepted in New York, a city so dedicated to human rights, and certainly not at the UN.

Some protesters dressed in caricature-esque costumes of Rouhani and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei , designed to highlight the grotesqueness of the Regime that has murdered over 120,000 political dissidents, while others gave out literature which documented the Regime’s crimes, and more still chanted, played music, and spoke up for human rights in Iran.

Regime Change

One of the overwhelming themes of the rally was the growing call for regime change in Iran and throughout the rally shouts of “Rouhani. No, no, no” and “Free, Free Iran” erupt spontaneously from the crowd.

Emadi asserted that the people of Iran are ready for change, as documented by the over 11,000 protests that have happened in Iran in the past year, While John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the UN, stressed the urgency of getting the mullahs out of Iran and reiterated his promise from July’s Free Iran rally that the Iranian Regime would not see its 40th anniversary.