Tens of thousands of MEK supporters from 102 countries on five continents gathered online today for this year’s Free Iran Global Summit. The event featured more than one hundred prominent politicians and dignitaries from around the world, including dozens of speakers.

The annual conference is held in support of the Iranian people and their struggle to create a free and democratic Iran. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this year’s summit is a semi-virtual event, which provides a unique opportunity to link communities across the world. Organizers say this year’s summit is the world’s largest online gathering.

The summit opened in Ashraf 3, the MEK’s headquarters in Albania, where two MEK members welcomed participants to the event in front of a conference hall filled with Ashrafis. “This movement has created fear in the criminals in Iran, and this movement will bring about change,” said the presenters, before showing a short film featuring MEK leader Massoud Rajavi.

Jean Francois Legaret

Former Mayor of the First District of France (representing French, Italian, and Albanian delegation of mayors)

France, Italy, Albania

“You have shown to everyone in the world your strength against torture, against the massacre, and we have to start to see the crime that is behind the coronavirus. We have to see what is the corruption in the regime that failed to prevent this,” he said.

British MP Dr. Matthew Oxford delivered remarks from England. “The international community has a responsibility and the means to deny the funds it needs to continue its unacceptable and malign behavior both at home and abroad. To muster the political courage to do that, the international community should look to the Iranian people and to Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, who is showing the way,” he said.

Philippe Gosselin

French MP (representing French delegation)

France

“We need to be free, we need to have a better and democratic Iran, and we need to have an Iran that is going to choose its choice.”

Theresa Payton

American Chief Information Officer during the George W. Bush Administration

United States

“In Iran, the crackdown on opposition and the media is enforced by the government. Their documented history includes arrests, executions, and filtering all news through state-run media, or even turning off internet access for its citizens. They also suppress and track the opposition and even objective reporters. The Iranian regime uses a mix of these heavy-handed tactics, along with subtler, more covert attacks or manipulation campaigns on social media to spread disinformation and fake news at a velocity and scale that would have been unheard of before the digital age.”

Martin Patzelt

German MEP

Rally in Brandenburg, Germany

“The citizens of Irans don’t want the mullahs’ regime anymore because the mullahs’ regime cannot correct its politics anymore. They cannot change, and any announcement of new policies are just words and nothing more. We have waited for action long enough, and the mullahs have to go.”

Anna Fotyga

MEP and former Polish Foreign Minister

Poland

“We are aware of atrocities that were imposed on Iranian society last autumn and all these years, and I’m happy that we were able within the European Parliament to show our solidarity by using our usual tools supporting solidarity and condemning the regime. I know there is still much to do. European policies were not entirely successful all the time. You are owed something from us. We should be more firm, more determined, and more decisive in pushing for changes in Iran. I’m sure that your combat will bring success, freedom, and liberty to all people living in Iran, and that you can return after so many years to your friends and your families.”

Summit organizers showed a video of a poem written by a MEK Resistance Unit member to future citizens of a free Iran, followed by a montage of Iranian protesters accompanied by a group of Iranian singers. Next came a tribute on the grounds of Ashraf 3 to Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq, the Prime Minister of Iran who was overthrown in the 1953 anti-democratic coup d’état that brought the Shah’s monarchy into power.

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi

President-elect, National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)

Ashraf 3

Messages of support from MEK supporters in Iran were shown, and Mrs. Maryam Rajavi greeted residents at Ashraf 3 after placing flowers on the memorials to the 120,00 MEK members who have lost their lives in the struggle for a free Iran. She addressed a chanting crowd inside the conference room at Ashraf 3 while supporters at gatherings in a dozen world capitals and attendees at 30,000 online connection points watched.

Highlights from her speech include:

“This summit echoes the voice of the Iranian people’s forty years of resistance against the religious dictatorship and fascism and for freedom and democracy. This is the voice of the largest and the longest-standing, most sophisticated, and most organized resistance in Iran’s history.”

“We the people of Iran and the Iranian Resistance, will overthrow the clerical regime, and we will claim Iran, and we will build a free and democratic Iran.”

“And our third commitment is to remain faithful to our people’s sovereignty and vote; to not seek power at any cost, but to establish freedom and justice at any cost; to never return to the dictatorships of Shah and the mullahs. As the majority of elected lawmakers in the U.S. and Europe have pointed out, we want to establish a democratic, secular, and non-nuclear Iran.”

“In the wake of the uprisings in December 2017 and January 2018, Massoud Rajavi said: ‘To contain this uprising, the mullahs’ Supreme Leader has no other option but to solve many economic, social, political and security problems, in which case it would pave the way for his overthrow.’ This is precisely where the mullahs are most vulnerable. If they continue to pursue their current path and course of action, namely continue their belligerence, missile launches, terrorism, intimidation, and closing ranks, they will inevitably crash headfirst. And if they make the slightest retreat, namely, if they change their behavior and abandon their suppression, terrorism, and belligerence, then they will undermine the very existence of the rule of the velayat-e faqih, i.e. absolute clerical rule.”

“The abnormal surging trend of the number of coronavirus victims in Iran is a product of the criminal policies of Khamenei and Rouhani. The strategy of launching mass casualties as a barrier against the threat of an uprising and eventual overthrow is exactly designed to pacify and demoralize the Iranian society, rendering it hopeless and paralyzed. They sent people back to work without offering them any help in prevention and treatment. At the same time, they blame the people for the spread of the virus, claiming that they did not observe the hygienic protocols.”

“Our people must enjoy the right to be healthy, to have shelter, employment, organization and syndicates, the autonomy of ethnic minorities, the right to equal participation in running the society’s affairs, gender equality and popular sovereignty.

“They must be free religious slavery and sexual exploitation. They must enjoy the freedom of choice. They must be pulled out of poverty and be free from fear. This means ending torture, execution, and social and economic insecurity.

“We have pledged to restore all these freedoms and rights. We make this pledge before the Iranian people and history. This is our pledge to 120,000 martyrs who fell for freedom.”

“The Iranian regime’s leaders planned to launch a major terrorist attack against the Free Iran gathering in Paris in 2018. The terrorists in possession of the bomb were arrested by the Belgian police. The regime’s diplomat, who handed them the bomb, has been in jail now for more than two years. Two days ago, the trial of this diplomat and his three accomplices began in Belgium. This is the first time that a serving diplomat has faced trial in Europe for direct terrorism. This is a major disgrace for the regime and shows that the regime will continue any crimes and will pay any price to destroy its alternative. Enjoying diplomatic privileges, the arrested regime diplomat directed this plot under the supervision of senior Intelligence Ministry officials.”

“As I have reiterated time and again, we have not come to gain something for ourselves; we have come to sacrifice and pay the requisite price. We are determined to restore freedom and people’s sovereignty in Iran, and this will happen. Long live freedom. God bless the people of Iran.”