{"id":223754,"date":"2020-08-12T10:56:19","date_gmt":"2020-08-12T09:56:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=223754"},"modified":"2023-01-25T07:07:24","modified_gmt":"2023-01-25T06:07:24","slug":"iran-after-mass-uprisings-and-public-defiance-tehrans-fear-of-the-mek-grows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/iran-resistance\/iran-after-mass-uprisings-and-public-defiance-tehrans-fear-of-the-mek-grows\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran: After Mass Uprisings and Public Defiance, Tehran\u2019s Fear of the MEK Grows"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ashraf-3_12082020\"
Ashraf-3, the MEK home in Albania<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Recent public statements from Iranian regime\u2019s officials have been unusually forthright about threats to their hold on power. At Friday prayer gatherings in major cities at the end of July, local representatives of regime\u2019s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei took special aim at the People\u2019s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI \/ MEK)<\/a>, warning the regime\u2019s elements to be on guard against the further actions of the MEK<\/a> \u201cResistance Units\u201d. But in so doing, they also showed their fear of the regime\u2019s viable alternative.<\/p>\n

This would be one explanation for an outpouring of activities by the rebellion youths, which roughly coincided with those Friday speeches. From the last week of July through the first week of August, defiant youth in a number of Iranian localities recorded themselves in public places, burning pictures of Ali Khamenei and other leading officials. Some went even further as setting light to billboard images of Khamenei and the regime\u2019s founder Ruhollah Khomeini, or even sparking fires near the walls of buildings belonging to repressive forces like the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Such direct action against regime authorities is made all the more significant by the fact that Iran\u2019s activist community recently suffered what may have been the worst single instance of government repression since the 1980s. Last November, the MEK played a leading role in a spontaneous nationwide uprising<\/a> against the regime. Participants in roughly 200 cities and towns reclaimed the slogans that had characterized a similar nationwide uprising in January 2018, leaving little doubt about their endorsement of a platform of regime change. In panic over its prior failure to stamp out that message, the regime deployed the IRGC to open fire on crowds of peaceful protesters, killing approximately 1,500<\/a> in a matter of days.<\/p>\n

The crackdown apparently succeeded in pushing the anti-government movement back underground, but not for long. In January, massive public protests erupted once again across several Iranian provinces, after regime authorities attempted to cover up the IRGC\u2019s responsibility for the downing of a Ukraine International Airlines flight<\/a>, which killed 176 people. As with the prior two uprisings, the initially narrow focus of the January demonstrations ultimately gave way to condemnations of the entire regime, and the longstanding practices that made such incidents possible.<\/p>\n

With each new series of protests, Iranians showed they are becoming more and more aware of that regime\u2019s inherent contempt for human rights. And as trailblazers of these struggles, the MEK\u2019s resistance units<\/a> are uniquely aware of that feature. This fact is clearly emphasized in some of the recordings those activists have produced over the past couple of weeks, and also in accompanying graffiti which calls attention to unresolved crimes from the regime\u2019s past.<\/p>\n

Some walls bore statements that could be translated as, \u201cMass murder is the main symptom of the mullahs\u2019 virus.\u201d Others highlighted specific instances of that treatment, particularly the massacre of political prisoners<\/a> which took place in the summer and autumn of 1988. On orders from Khomeini at that time, the judiciary convened \u201cdeath commissions\u201d to interrogate dissidents over their views and affiliations, then executed all who remained defiant of the regime\u2019s authority, or sympathetic to the MEK. After several months, the death toll climbed to more than 30,000, and many victims were interred in secret mass graves.<\/p>\n

On Iranian city streets, some of the most recent graffiti messages identify this massacre as \u201cthe greatest unpunished crime against humanity.\u201d Others highlight activist calls for prosecution of its masterminds and perpetrators. Still others connect those calls to action with the domestic activities of resistance units, stating for instance that \u201cthe blood of the martyrs gives rise to uprisings in Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe blood of the martyrs of the 1988 massacre gives rise to uprisings in Iran\u201d MEK Resistance Units<\/div><\/div>
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