{"id":230421,"date":"2020-12-01T11:37:54","date_gmt":"2020-12-01T11:37:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=230421"},"modified":"2023-02-01T05:32:32","modified_gmt":"2023-02-01T04:32:32","slug":"terrorism-trial-highlights-risks-of-inaction-rewards-for-assertiveness-in-iran-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/blog\/op-ed\/terrorism-trial-highlights-risks-of-inaction-rewards-for-assertiveness-in-iran-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Terrorism Trial Highlights Risks of Inaction, Rewards for Assertiveness in Iran Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Iranian diplomat-terrorist Assadollah Assadi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Alejo Vidal Quadras<\/strong><\/p>\n

Next month, a Belgian federal court will mostly likely hand down a conviction for four participants in an Iranian terror plot. The defendants, one of whom is a high-ranking diplomat with longstanding ties to the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, will the receive sentences of between five and 20 years each. Whatever the exact outcome, the international community must be prepared to take action when it is announced and that action must demonstrate that the consequences of Iranian terrorism will not be borne exclusively by the individual agents who attempted to perpetrate that terrorism.<\/p>\n

Even before the trial began on Friday, investigators and eyewitnesses had made it absolutely clear that the plot which was thwarted in June 2018 was not the product of rogue action or personal initiative by its diplomat mastermind or any of his co-conspirators. Rather, the outline of that plot had been handed down from the regime\u2019s leadership as part of a larger strategy for stamping out dissent at a time of increasingly popular unrest inside the Islamic Republic.<\/p>\n

Throughout the previous January, Iranian cities and towns were rocked by protests<\/a> in which citizens from all walks of life chanted slogans like \u201cdeath to the dictator\u201d and expressed overwhelming contempt for the entire theocratic system. At the time, the nationwide uprising was recognized as perhaps the most significant outpouring of dissent since the mullahs\u2019 originally consolidated power in the 1980s. The threat to the regime was made even more apparent when Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei acknowledged that the unrest had been channeled and directed largely by the pro-democracy opposition group known as the People\u2019s Mojahedin Organization of Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Although the unified nationwide protests were disrupted by the end of January following dozens of killings and thousands of arrests, the underlying movement remained untouched. Soon, NCRI<\/a> leader Maryam Rajavi<\/a> called for a \u201cyear full of uprisings,\u201d and protests began to break out again, albeit in a more disparate and less coordinated fashion. This nonetheless justified the extreme anxiety that had been evident in Khamenei\u2019s acknowledgement of the PMOI<\/a>, a group that regime authorities had long sought to portray as small, disorganized, and lacking in serious popular support.<\/p>\n

The 2018 plot was clearly intended to help bring reality more closely into line with that propaganda, by sowing chaos within the Resistance movement. Though headquartered abroad, the coalition that organized that year\u2019s expatriate gathering is led by the PMOI, with Mrs. Rajavi as its designee to lead a transitional government following the overthrow of the clerical regime. The June 2018 rally<\/a> of the National Council of Resistance of Iran featured a keynote address by Mrs. Rajavi herself, plus participation from other leading NCRI officials as well as hundreds of political dignitaries who traveled to Paris from throughout the world to show support for the coalition.<\/p>\n

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Free Iran 2018 Gathering - 30 June 2018 - Villepinte, Paris<\/div><\/div>
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