Every year, tens of thousands of supporters and members of the Iranian opposition, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI /MEK Iran), attend a summit to express their commitment to creating a free and democratic Iran. Last year, the summit took place at Ashraf-3 in Tirana, the capital of Albania, where the Iranian opposition (PMOI / MEK Iran) has its main base. Not just Iranian opposition figures attended this conference, as hundreds of parliamentarians from the U.S. and Europe, human rights activists, politicians, and dignitaries also attended to express their solidarity with the Iranian opposition (PMOI / MEK Iran).

This year, because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the summit will take place via video conferencing.

The annual gathering remembers the fate that so many ordinary Iranians have suffered under the control of the mullahs’ regime. At least 120,000 people have been executed over the last 40 years in Iran by the regime. That figure includes at least 30,000 political prisoners who were executed in1988. The clerical regime in Iran has pursued a policy of domestic suppression of human rights, in combination with developing the potential to build a nuclear bomb and exporting terrorism beyond Iran’s borders.

The Iranian Resistance (PMOI / MEK Iran) has been responsible for exposing the regime’s nuclear program, as well as its intentions to destabilize the region and suppress the people of Iran.

The Iranian Resistance (PMOI / MEK Iran) has consistently called for an uprising by the Iranian people to rid Iran of a regime that has shown itself to be incapable of delivering a secure and democratic nation.

The MEK has been involved in creating Resistance Units across Iran since 2012. These units were active in showing the pictures of Resistance leaders in all major Iranian cities. The MEK and its resistance units were a core part of the organization of uprisings and protests in Iran from 2017 through 2018 and 2019. These protests are ongoing in Iranian cities.

The regime is aware of the key importance and involvement of the MEK’s Resistance Units in these uprisings. The regime may have done what it could to violently suppress these uprisings, but with little effect.

Iranian state-run media has recently been admitting the role of the MEK in the leadership of the protests and uprisings that have swept the country in recent years, especially warning of the influence that the MEK is increasingly having on Iranian youth.

One of the main messages expressed in this year’s gathering is that Iran is ripe for change. A democratic alternative is ready to take over. Mrs. Maryam Rajavi is the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran’s (NCRI), 10 point plan for Iran has called for:

• respect for human rights in Iran;
• a democratic republic;
• the separation between state and religion;
• gender equality;
• pluralism;
• abolition of the death penalty;
• the rule of law;
• free and fair elections;
• market economy;
• non-nuclear Iran.

It has been pointed out to Western governments that it is pointless appeasing the Iranian regime. These governments and their policymakers must take a more hard-line attitude towards Iran. Iranian embassies should be closed, sanctions imposed and terrorist activities sponsored by the regime must be condemned. Besides, the right of the Iranian people to overthrow the Iranian dictatorship and replace it with a democratic alternative must be respected.

This year, because of the situation caused by the pandemic, the annual gathering will be held online. It is expected that the same number of attendees will take part in the conference to show their support for a free Iran.

On June 17^th this year, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bipartisan resolution in support of the Iranian people and their desire for a secular, free, democratic and non-nuclear Iran.

An online conference on June 20th took place in which the president-elect of the NCRI, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi,  made an impassioned speech, quoted in full below.

“The resolution signed by the majority of members in the U.S. House of Representatives, which has recognized the Iranian people’s right to the establishment of a democratic republic based on the separation of religion and state, provides a credible model for all governments and the international community to follow regarding Iran and the Iranian people.

The resolution censures the clerical regime’s state-sponsored terrorism, and specifically, the terrorist plot against the Iranian Resistance’s 2018 annual gathering.

The spirit of this resolution can be summed up in supporting the right of the Iranian people to change the regime and to achieve a democratic republic. It states that the Iranian people have rejected the monarchical dictatorship and, as well, do not accept religious tyranny and oppose it. It also references and points to the Iranian Resistance’s Ten-Point Plan, which reflects the image of a free Iran:

No to velayat-e faqih; Yes, to people’s sovereignty in a pluralist republic based on universal suffrage.

Freedom of speech, freedom of political parties and assemblies, freedom of the press and the internet; dissolution and disbanding of the IRGC, the terrorist Qods Force, plainclothes agents, the unpopular Bassij, the MOIS, Council of the Cultural Revolution, and all of the suppressive patrols and institutions in cities, villages, schools, universities, offices, and factories;

Commitment to individual and social freedoms and rights under the Universal Declaration of Humans Rights; dissolution of all agencies in charge of censorship and inquisition; seeking justice for the massacred political prisoners, the prohibition of torture, and the abolishment of the death penalty;

Separation of religion and state, and freedom of religions and faiths.

Complete gender equality in political, social, cultural, and economic rights, and equal participation of women in political leadership; abolishment of any form of discrimination; the right to choose one’s clothing, and to marriage, divorce, education, and employment; prohibition of all forms of exploitation against women under any pretext;

Independent judiciary and legal system under international standards based on the presumption of innocence, the right to defense, the right to appeal, and the right to be tried in a public court; full independence of judges; abolishment of the mullahs’ Sharia law and dissolution of revolutionary courts;

Autonomy and removal of double injustices against Iranian nationalities and ethnicities in alignment with the NCRI’s plan for the autonomy of Iranian Kurdistan.

Justice and equal opportunities in the realms of employment and entrepreneurship for all of the people in Iran in a free market economy; restoration of the rights of blue-color workers, farmers, nurses, white-color workers, teachers, and retirees.

Protection and restoration of the environment that has been massacred under the rule of the mullahs.

A non-nuclear Iran that is devoid of weapons of mass destruction; peace, co-existence, and international and regional cooperation.

As we mark the 40th year of the struggle against religious tyranny, the Iranian Resistance renews its commitment to the Iranian people and the 120,000 martyrs for freedom.

Since the outset, we have declared that our goal is not to take power at all costs. Instead, our goal is to realize the Iranian people’s desires for the establishment of freedom, justice, and democracy at all costs.”