The conference, organized by the Organization of Iranian American Communities (OIAC), was attended by several renowned American politicians and featured Iranian opposition President-elect Maryam Rajavi of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), as its keynote speaker.
“The most recent uprising in Iran was sparked because a very brave young woman, Mahsa Amini, lost her life because she was unwilling to do what the regime wanted, down to the very inch of her hair that had to be covered. And we saw that there was great revulsion among the people of Iran, recognizing how terrible this was, how wrong it was. And it isn’t because she was attempting to engage in some sort of revolt. She was simply going about her everyday life,” She explained.
In #WashingtonDC, @chavezlinda endorsed the decades-long leadership of @Maryam_Rajavi in the fight against the regime in #Iran. pic.twitter.com/zRuCBKJov2
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) December 21, 2022
Mahsa Amini was a victim of Tehran’s ruthless morality police. She was a Kurdish ethnic minority member from Saqqez, a town in northwest Iran. She was savagely beaten by morality police and died of her injuries in a Tehran hospital on September 16. The event triggered protests that quickly spread across Iran and rekindled the people’s desire to overthrow the regime.
“Now, we have been amazed at what has gone on in Iran, with all 31 provinces having had demonstrations, people taking to the streets, 220 some cities, and 30,000 arrests of brave Iranians. But the reach of this regime is very, very wide and very, very deep. We heard from Governor Locke about the attempted bombing of one of the NCR’s gatherings in 2018 in Paris. I was there along with others. I think others who were here today were there,” Ms. Linda Chavez said, referring to the 2018 bomb plot targeting an Iranian opposition group in France.
“Madam Maryam Rajavi has been a leader of this movement for a very long time. And I have been privileged, as I know many of you have, to be with her on many occasions to hear her talk about her belief in the people of Iran and her fight against a regime that represses those people. Maryam Rajavi is leading the resistance, and her leadership, I think, is all the more important because she’s a woman.”
.@chavezlinda: @Maryam_Rajavi is leading the resistance, and her leadership is all the more important because she's a woman. Madam Rajavi’s ten-point plan can be and should be the model for a future Iran. #IranRevoIution https://t.co/HvN3so3R2g
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) December 17, 2022
“I think what has made many of us so hopeful is in seeing the protests that have broken out in these more than 200 cities around Iran, that what we see is that this is not just a fight against inflation, higher prices, the inability to get paid if you happen to be a government worker or a teacher, the corruption that goes on. Or even just a fight against things like the morality laws of the state.” She continued. “This is a fight that is much bigger. And the people who have taken to the streets are saying it loud and clear. They want regime change.”
“We must have a policy that looks at only one endgame. And that endgame is that Khamenei and his thugs are out and that elected leadership is in. In Iran, we have to see that freedom is the goal, that there is freedom for the people of Iran, and that the people of Iran have the right to choose their own leaders,” she concluded.
MEK Iran (follow us on Twitter and Facebook), Maryam Rajavi’s on her site, Twitter & Facebook, NCRI (Twitter & Facebook), and People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran – MEK IRAN – YouTub
