Need to know facts about the annual Iranian convention

The annual Iranian Diaspora convention

By: PMOI/MEK staff

Paris, June 12, 2018 - With less than three weeks remaining to the annual Iranian Diaspora convention that is traditionally held in Paris each summer, this text intends to provide need-to-know facts about this major development involving Iran and the future of this important country, with an emphasis on this year’s developments inside Iran.

In Dec/Jan Iran was rocked with nationwide protests sweeping throughout the country, involving over 140 cities and rattling the mullahs’ regime to its core. The Iranian people are showing how they are continuing their quest for freedom, with the recent protests marking the beginning of a new chapter in this regard. Undeniable is the fact that these protests are gaining increasing momentum and the Iranian people are more than ever voicing demands for a free and democratic Iran.

The Iranian Diaspora are planning to stage their annual Paris convention on June 30^th and thousands of Iranians and supporters of freedom in Iran will be taking part from across the globe.

“Free Iran” will be the message heard from the participants pouring into Paris from five continents. These Iranians will be voicing their support for the Iranian opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a democratic alternative that is led by NCRI President Maryam Rajavi who strives to establish freedom and democracy in Iran.

As protests continue to grow in Iran, parallel to nationwide strikes, the people of this country are showing their determination in continuing this struggle to overthrow the mullahs.

Workers, teachers, merchants, farmers, and people from all walks of life are seen protesting in Mashhad, Kazerun, Baneh, Haft Tappeh, Isfahan and dozens of other cities throughout the country. All of Iran’s communities, including the Arabs, Baluchis, Fars, Kurds, Lors, and Turks are uniting in this nationwide call for freedom.

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#FreeIran2018

#ایران_آزاد۹۷

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IRAQI VICE PRESIDENT WARNS OF GROWING POWER OF IRAN-BACKED MILITIAS

IRAQI VICE PRESIDENT WARNS OF GROWING POWER OF IRAN-BACKED MILITIAS

By Carlo Muñoz

Iraqi Vice President Osama al- the top government official representing the country’s Sunni minority, on Tuesday denied claims that Baghdad is pressing the Trump administration to directly arm and train the country’s Sunni militias to counter the growing influence of Iranian-backed Shia paramilitaries.Speaking to reporters after a speech at the Washington-based U.S. Institute for Peace,

 Osama al-Nujaifi said he had not come to lobby the U.S. government for military support on behalf of Iraq’s Sunni armed groups.

But he also said in his address that the growing firepower of Iranian-backed Shiite militias looms as the nation’s most pressing future security threat now that Islamic State has been pushed out of Mosul, Tal Afar and other cities it held in the north.

The Iranian-backed forces “have gained a lot of power, and maybe they can pose more problems,” Mr. al-Nujaifi said.

In meetings with senior State Department and administration officials earlier this week, Mr. al-Nujaifi said he suggested continued American military support for local and tribal groups in the embattled Nineveh province of northern Iraq.

Nineveh is one of Iraq’s most ethnically complex provinces, where Iraqi Sunni, Shias, Kurds, Turkmen, Assyrians and Christians call home. Mosul is located there, and was only liberated from Islamic State control by government forces backed by American air power in July.

Iran: Kurdish woman under torture to make TV confessions

An Iranian Kurdish woman is under torture and inhuman pressures to make false televised confessions.

Chini Akharkhoob, from Saqqez, a city in Iranian Kurdistan Province, who was arrested by intelligence agents on September 26, 2017, is still in prison after 40 days. The Department of Intelligence has told Ms. Akharkhoob that they would release her only after she speaks out against Kurdish opposition parties before the camera.

She has refused to give in to this demand and as a result the Intelligence Department has increased its pressures on her and her family in order to make her cave in.

After the independence referendum for Iraqi Kurdistan, held on September 25, 2017, hundreds of Iranian Kurds were arrested by security and intelligence agents for celebrating the outcome. At least 10 of those arrested were women. The clerical regime has conditioned the release of these prisoners on making false TV confessions.

UN Concern Over Increasing Executions in Iran

London- Asharq Al Awsat

Asma Jahangir, the UN special rapporteur on the Iran rights situation, said on Thursday that no change has been made in Iran during the past year, expressing her frustration with the high number of executions, especially among teenagers as well as the harassment of minorities.

She added that achieving a progress on the level of women rights is quite slow, expressing concerns over curbing the freedom of speech.

A day after submitting her report to the world body, Jahangir told reporters that torture was widespread in Iran and that some people were imprisoned for seeking justice.

Jahangir said she had not attempted to assess the impact of sanctions on human rights in Iran in her report because she had not been allowed to visit the country, which does not recognize her mandate.

On the level of minorities, the UN rapporteur pointed out that there are reports on arbitrary arrests, torture and prosecutions of Kurds, Arabs, Azerbaijanis and Baluch people.

Jahangir pointed out that executions are rising, highlighting that Iranian authorities executed four convicted individuals who have not reached the legal age yet. She also noted, in her report, the fact that more than 86 teenagers await their execution.

TERRORIST COMMANDER IS BEHIND IRAN'S MEDDLING IN IRAQ

By: Struan Stevenson 

Oct. 24 (UPI) -- The interference of the Iranian terrorist commander Qasem Soleimani in the internal affairs of Iraq has reached scandalous proportions that should sound alarm bells in the West.It has emerged that the general, who commands the terrorist Quds Force, responsible for foreign operations by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, orchestrated the reoccupation of the oil-rich city of Kirkuk

and many other Kurdish regions in Northern Iraq.

Kirkuk and other disputed areas bordering Kurdistan had been held by the Iraqi Kurds for the past two years after the Kurdish Peshmerga military force successfully ousted the Islamic State. The Americans recently listed the IRGC as an international terrorist organization; the Quds Force has been on terrorist blacklists for years.

The Iraqi federal government had been reeling from the apparent takeover of Kirkuk by the Kurds. There was also increasing tension and splits within Kurdistan itself, with the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of the two main parties controlling the KRG and the main opposition to Barzani's ruling Kurdistan Democratic Party.

It now seems that some of the leaders of the PUK, close allies of the Iranian regime, met with Soleimani in the city of Sulaimania the day before the Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered Iraqi military forces and pro-Iranian militias, such as Hashd al-Shaabi, to reoccupy Kirkuk. Barzani, his party and many Kurdish leaders and parties have accused some of the leaders of the PUK of betraying Kirkuk and the martyrs who died rescuing the city from IS.

Many of the PUK's senior officials and members of the Peshmerga have condemned those leaders who have betrayed them.

Thanks to Obama, America is two steps behind Iran in Middle East

The fall of Raqqa, capital of the Islamic State’s “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq, is unarguably an important politico-military milestone, albeit long overdue. Nonetheless, ISIS, a metastasized version of al Qaeda, remains a global terrorist threat, and prospects for Middle Eastern stability and security for America’s interests and allies are still remote.

Even as ISIS was losing Raqqa, Iraqi regular armed forces and Shiite militia were attacking Kirkuk and its environs, held by Iraqi Kurds since June 2014, when ISIS burst out of Syria and seized large swathes of territory from Baghdad’s collapsing army.

The battles for Raqqa and Kirkuk reveal much about the mistakes in U.S. strategy for defeating ISIS, and the consequences of not supporting Iraqi Kurdish efforts to establish an independent state. The two battles are closely related, proving again the historical reality that the Middle East is replete with multi-party, multi-dimensional conflicts, and contains more troublemakers than peacemakers.

Trump Excludes Iraq’s Popular Mobilization from his Iran Strategy

Iraqs Popular Mobilization Force commits criminal activities in Kurdish regions

Huffington Post, Oct. 22, 2017 - Trump’s exclusion of Iraq from his enumeration of Iranian violations in the Arab world and the IRGC roles there, in Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon, has interesting implications. Iraq seems to occupy a special position for President Trump. The prime minister in Baghdad, Haider al-Abadi, may have earned the trust of the US president, and even a preferential position with regard to US support, possibly at the expense of the Kurds, Washington’s erstwhile long-standing ally. Indeed, Trump has overlooked the participation of the Popular Mobilization forces in battles alongside the federal Iraqi forces to retake Kirkuk from the Kurds and other Kurdish-claimed regions in northern Iraq, bearing in mind that the US Treasury Department has now targeted the IRGC as a supporter of designated groups and stepped its sanctions against Tehran’s elite force. Clearly, the state of division within the Kurdish ranks, with accusations of betrayal and treason, is a key factor that led to the current outcome in Iraqi Kurdistan. 

Clearly too, the Trump administration was furious with Masoud Barzani for rejecting a compromise deal to postpone the referendum for a year – which Washington brokered as the best possible option and formalized through a UN Security Council resolution – and decided to let him bear the consequences of his mistakes alone. The situation in Iraq today indicates the presence of a secret thread not only in Kurdistan but also across the rest of Iraq, where Abadi’s ties to Iran and the PMF overlap with his relations with Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the Trump administration. 

ANALYSIS: Is this the beginning of a new era for Iraq without Iran?

The military phase of the fight against ISIS is winding down after the liberation of Mosul, and the battle for the nearby town of Tal Afar is predicted to end soon. This has provided an opportunity for Iraq to begin distancing itself from the influence gained by Iran following the disastrous 2003 war, and returning to its true Arabic heritage.

Iraq was known as a melting pot where Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens lived alongside and in mixed societies for centuries. Prior to Iran gaining its disastrous sway across Mesopotamia, this was a land where the majority of Shiites lived and prospered with their Sunni, Christian, Yazidi and all other religious minority brothers.

Has not the time arrived for Iraq to regain its true position as part of the Arab world, and rid its soil of the meddling of Iran’s clerics?

Long-awaited developments

Iraqi officials have embarked on a new campaign of visiting Saudi Arabia and other Arab Sunni states, signaling long-welcomed changes. The influential Sadrist leader Muqtada was seen in the final days of July meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman.

Only days later Sadr paid a visit to the United Arab Emirates, another critic of Iran’s policies, where he was welcomed as an Iraqi leader by a slate of leading politicians and clerics.

Sadr’s visit rendered a variety of measures by Riyadh, including launching a Saudi Consulate in Sadr’s hometown of Najaf, one of the two holiest Shiite cities in Iraq. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, known as Iraq’s most senior Shiite cleric, his distance from Tehran’s viewpoints and calling for Iraq to practice openness in establishing relations, did not block such a proposition.