A video from Iran showing a group of young Iranians chanting slogans against the regime and in favor of Iran’s principal opposition, Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), in Tehran has been circulating on social media.
The youth in Tehran carried out that courageous act while knowing that the slightest connection with the opposition has severe consequences.
January 3 – Tehran, #Iran
Locals chanted anti-regime slogans:
"Death to Khamenei! Hail to Rajavi!"
"We're the MEK & we're fighting the mullahs!"
"We have written with our blood that we sacrifice our lives for the people!"#IranRevolution2023#FreeIran2023pic.twitter.com/f3YIe79YAX— People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) (@Mojahedineng) January 4, 2023
Their action foretells a growing trend of youth joining the MEK’s Resistance Units network in the ongoing uprising, a fact that has caused much stir in the regime. This fact has been acknowledged by several top authorities recently.
“We must address our shortcomings and attract youth, our children, to the system. If the younger generations knew about the MEK grouplet’s crime, they would never follow them,” Ramezan Sharif, the spokesperson of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), said on January 2, 2023, according to the state-run Fars News Agency.
“Our youth do not have much information about the past incidents, especially the MEK’s activities. This is our shortcoming and failure, particularly as far as it concerns our media. Many of our youth do not know what happened 20 years ago. They are unaware of the Mujahedin’s actions,” Ali Khamenei, the regime’s supreme leader, acknowledged on December 20, as broadcasted by the state TV.
“We owe an apology to our dear youths because we failed to educate and emancipate them. Now the enemy wants to turn the younger generation against us,” IRGC Brig. Gen. Mohammad-Hossein Sepehr, Deputy Minister of Interior, said in an interview with state TV on January 3.
The nationwide Iran uprising has rattled the regime’s foundations. After decades of oppression, the authorities faced a restive society, particularly a defiant generation, who fought back fully armed security forces with bare hands. They are not afraid of torture and executions and have confirmed their goal is the regime’s overthrow and nothing less.
The persistence of what many consider a revolution in the making in a country where the entire military and security apparatus is designed to quash popular protests suggests that this uprising is indeed organized. Seeing the role of the MEK’s Resistance Units as a driving force behind these protests doesn’t need any peering into the gloom.
Officials have been trying to portray the growing trend of youth joining the MEK’s Resistance Units, or the organization’s strategy to topple the regime at any cost, as a mere effect of social media and the regime’s failure in “educating” the youth.
On the contrary, the clerical regime has used its full potential and squandered billions of dollars of national wealth on demonizing the MEK. This includes producing hundreds of so-called documentaries against the organization, publishing many books, and thousands of hit pieces against the MEK. The mullahs have used their extensive network of so-called “friendly-journalist” in Western media outlets to parrot the regime’s talking points against the MEK, portraying it as a fringe grouplet with no popular support.
During the recent “Qatargate” scandal in the European parliament, Eldar Mamedov, foreign policy adviser to the Social Democratic Group at the European Parliament, was suspended from his position and went under investigation for his ties with Tehran. Mamedov was actively pursuing Tehran’s agenda in the European Parliament in demonizing the MEK. He wrote many articles vilifying the MEK, and this was part of his mandate as a paid agent.
Besides the undeniable presence of the role of the MEK’s supporters in the current uprising, the pathetic acknowledgment by officials like Khamenei of their failure to prevent youth from approaching the MEK debunks all those allegations Tehran and its apologists have been blaring for years.
In a classified report exposed by the Iranian Resistance, IRGC expressed its fear of the MEK’s activities inside Iran. “Since the beginning of the protests and due to their expansion and intensity, the MEK’s activities have increased,” the report reads in part.
"Documents pinpoint student leaders as inspiring the protest, with #ResistanceUnits standing up to #Iran's paramilitary guards despite crackdowns on #IranProtests sparked three months ago over the death of Kurdistan woman #MahsaAmini," wrote @MailOnline https://t.co/JI58GnltuB
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) January 1, 2023
In its article on January 1, the Dailymail published an interview with a Resistance Units who said: “The day I joined the resistance units, I never thought that one day, when we go to the streets with our team, we might see that 50 meters away, or 100 meters away, and around us [it is] completely full of resistance units.”
These facts only highlight the Iranian people and their organized Resistance movement’s unwavering determination to topple the regime and establish a democratic country. The regime fears this outcome and has mobilized its forces to counter it. The world should not be silent regarding the regime’s brutality and should recognize the Iranian people’s desire and will for regime change.
