Aftenposten Norwegian daily
December 3, 2009
(Translated from original Norwegian text to English)
The Iranian Resistance movement is optimistic about the future: The revolt in Iran last summer made a regime change achievable and not just a matter for political visionaries. After the movement was driven out of the country in the wake of the Islamic revolution in 1979-80, it has lived in exile. Now it can see the possibility of returning home.
Aftenposten Norwegian daily
December 3, 2009
(Translated from original Norwegian text to English)
The Iranian Resistance movement is optimistic about the future: The revolt in Iran last summer made a regime change achievable and not just a matter for political visionaries. After the movement was driven out of the country in the wake of the Islamic revolution in 1979-80, it has lived in exile. Now it can see the possibility of returning home.
“I hope that the next time I give an interview to Aftenposten, will be in Tehran,” said Maryam Rajavi smiling to Aftenposten's reporter and photographer. The charismatic female leader of the movement People's Mujahedin of Iran and National Council of Resistance of Iran is in Norway to talk with Norwegian politicians about the situation of several thousand supporters who are in a camp in Iraq, near Iranian border. Today she was received by the Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, and tomorrow she will meet a number of parliamentary representatives who are interested in the situation in Iran.
Like a Queen
A meeting with Maryam Rajavi is always special: The movement she leads has for decades been pursued either by the Shah's secret police or the mullahs’ regime aggressive troops. Thousands of the movement's followers have been jailed and killed. To keep Western countries away from the group has been for years a priority target for Iranian foreign policy.
Today, it is difficult to say how much support the movement has inside Iran. But outside the country, the group has appeared as a competing state apparatus to the mullah regime, with Maryam Rajavi as the movement's leader and public face.
That Maryam Rajavi is a special leader, is something that you can realize when you meet her, she speaks with tremendous enthusiasm about the situation in her country. In the great circle of accompanying supporters, she stands at the center point. There is no queen like her, both in the way she acts and the way the fans associate with her.
Female
Not least, it is especially that she is a female leader in a political movement that aims to take power in a Muslim country. When we get into the role of women in society, she becomes even more involved:
“Women play an important role at all levels of our movement. Women have been at the forefront of opposition to the mullah regime," she says. In the new Iran there must be an end to discrimination against women, once and for all. Therefore, it is inspiring to come to you in Scandinavia, she said.
But it is the situation in the Ashraf camp in Iraq that is closest to her heart.
“This summer, the regime caused a bloodbath in Iraq in Ashraf. The regime has set the 15th December as a deadline to clear the camp. We fear for the massacre and an endless variety of human tragedies against the 3,500 who live there.
Norway is a country with a strong voice in the world. I appeal to you Norwegians, as strongly as I can, to take up this issue in all international forums as far as you can. One must not turn away from what is happening, "she says.
Threat
Time and again she talks about the mullah regime in Tehran, and the threat she believes it poses to world peace.
“What is happening is that a fanatical, fundamentalist Islamic regime is on the verge of obtaining nuclear weapons. The West has proved to be naive and seeking appeasement. Under the guise of negotiations mullahs have only continued the process to produce nuclear weapons. Mullahs have reason to smile. The tactic has so far been successful,” she says.
But the uprising in Iran in summer and autumn is about to overturn the game, believes Maryam Rajavi: “Fear of mullahs’ suppression has disappeared. The countdown has begun. I do not think the regime has more than one year left to live,” she says.