NCRI – Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, described the Fire Festival uprising on Tuesday as a major defeat for the clerical regime and its suppressive machinery and massive propaganda apparatus.
The regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in an anti-Iranian and anti-Islamic decree on Sunday said the festival has “no basis in sharia (Islamic religious law) and creates a lot of harm and corruption, (which is why) it is appropriate to avoid it.”
Mrs. Rajavi said: People of Tehran from east to west and from south to north united during the Fire Festival and chanted in unison “Down with Khamenei” and “down with dictator” and threw Khamenei’s posters along with his decree into the fire.
She emphasized: The uprising across Iran during the festival was a display of the capacities of the Iranian people and the Resistance to bring down the clerical regime and bring about a democratic change. Many cities including Esfahan, Shiraz, Kashan, Ahwaz, Mashhad, Orumieh, Ardabil, Shahr-e Kord, Sanandaj, Ilam, Kermanshah, Lahijan, Karaj and Boroujerd were engulfed by people’s revolt during the Fire Festival.
Burning the pictures of Khamenei and Khomeini and setting fire to suppressive forces’ centers and vehicles were a crushing response by people to any conciliation that have been encouraged by the regime’s internal factions calling on people not to participate in the Fire Festival uprising, Mrs. Rajavi noted.
The uprising on Tuesday took place against all suppressive measures, death sentences issued for those detained during the Ashura uprising, widespread arrests and extensive psychological warfare to prevent it.
Mrs. Rajavi called on international community to take urgent steps to release a large number of youths arrested during yesterday’s uprising and attacks by the suppressive forces last night.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
March 17, 2010
