by Mahmood Hakamian
One of the most common reasons given for dismissing the Iranian Resistance, specifically the People’s Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI/MEK), is that it is unpopular within Iran. This is simply untrue.
The MEK is the largest and most popular people’s resistance movement within Iran and it enjoys support from all sectors of the population. The Mullahs’ Regime, on the other hand, is highly unpopular among the Iranian people as evidenced by the hundreds of protests per day in 2017, which was admitted to by the Regime and finally by the recent nationwide protests and uprising in which the Iranian people clearly expressed their desire for regime change as the one and only solution to all the problems.
Getting precise numbers of MEK members and supporters in Iran is impossible because this organization has been banned there since the early shortly after the then Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini declared the MEK to be enemies of the Regime.
The punishment under the Regime for being associated with the MEK can be execution- under some vague charges of enmity against god- so it is no wonder that MEK members have to keep their political affiliation under wraps. Despite this, many Iranians will hold MEK banners or flags during protests or hang them up in public places before elections, so you can see that the MEK is incredibly popular in Iran.
If you wanted a more precise way to measure support for the MEK within Iran, one of the best ways is to look at the viewership figures for the MEK’s television channel Face of Freedom. This channel presents unbiased news to the Iranian people, bypassing Regime censorship, and also hosts programs on Iranian history, literature, culture, art, music, and comedy.
The MEK’s television channel has about 10 million daily viewers, while the website associated with Voice of Freedom gets tens of thousands of daily hits. In 2017, the channel held a telethon to keep the channel going and raised $5.5 million, which is a lot of money in Iran.
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