![\"iran-ashraf3-albania\"](\"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/iran-ashraf3-albania.webp\" "\\"iran-ashraf3-albania\\"")
<\/h2>\n<\/h2>\nIn January 2018, Iran was in the midst of a virtually unprecedented nationwide uprising which saw residents of more than 100 cities calling \u201cdeath to the dictator\u201d<\/a> and making no secret of their desire for regime change as the means of securing a democratic future for their country.<\/p>\n The regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei responded with a speech that begrudgingly acknowledged the organizational role of the leading pro-democracy opposition group, the People\u2019s Mojahedin Organization<\/a> of Iran (PMOI\/MEK)<\/p>\n Khamenei\u2019s speech undermined literally decades of propaganda spread by himself, his subordinates, and a vast state media network with outlets extending their reach across much of the world.<\/p>\n In 1988, Khamenei\u2019s predecessor Ruhollah Khomeini set out to destroy the MEK by issuing a fatwa that declared its members guilty of \u201cenmity against God\u201d and thereby called for them to be summarily executed. As a result, 30,000 political prisoners<\/a> were executed over the course of three months, and afterward, the regime began peddling the claim that support for the MEK was virtually non-existent and the MEK was a fringe group comprised primarily of exiles.<\/p>\n Those talking points remained largely consistent all the way up until the 2018 uprising. For a time, the MEK was even designated as a terrorist group in Europe and the United States before legal challenges demonstrated that there was no evidence of any criminal activity associated with the group, whose false designation was the result of back-channel dealings and favor-trading with Iranian authorities.<\/p>\n Since long before its formal delisting, the MEK has been accumulating ever-greater support from lawmakers, scholars, and experts in foreign affairs throughout the world. Through participation in conferences and international rallies, those supporters have sought to chip away at the regime\u2019s propaganda and promote international understanding of what Khamenei would ultimately respond to in January 2018: the MEK\u2019s status as the greatest single challenge to the mullahs\u2019 hold on power, and the greatest hope for popular sovereignty and the rule of law in the Iran of the future.<\/p>\n Ever since Khamenei betrayed his own propaganda<\/a>, the regime has been working to claw back its talking points and to once again promote its adverse impact on the foreign policy of Western nations. Unfortunately for Tehran, that project suffered a substantial setback in July, which has the potential to nudge Western policy in much more productive directions, provided that the international community pays suitable attention to it.<\/p>\n On July 23, the Iranian Resistance was set to host a major rally in support of regime change at the MEK\u2019s compound, Ashraf 3, in Albania. That event was indefinitely postponed after Albanian authorities revealed the existence of credible terrorist threats against the compound, which is home to roughly 3,000 MEK members. But that revelation came with the further revelation that those authorities had been conducting a four-year investigation<\/a> into Iranian networks tasked with spying on the MEK, setting the stage for further terrorist plots, and spreading the regime\u2019s propaganda about the organization.<\/p>\n Around a week before the Free Iran World Summit was set to take place, the Albanian authorities executed search warrants for a number of properties associated with that network and interrogated 20 individuals affiliated with the Iranian regime. Among those individuals was a person named Hassan Heyrani, who had previously been used as a source by several Western media outlets in reports that the MEK described as defamatory. Heyrani\u2019s arrest<\/a> effectively confirms that the statements he provided against the MEK to those outlets were part of an influence operation by the Iranian regime.<\/p>\n Disruption of the regime\u2019s network in Albania also yields evidence in support of statements that have been made in recent years by persons who have confessed their own involvement with Heyrani and his fellow Iranian operatives. In February 2021, Hadi Sani-Kani wrote an open letter to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in which he expressed remorse for having \u201cfallen into the trap\u201d of the Iranian Intelligence Ministry for four years. During that time, he was paid to write articles and give media interviews conveying the regime\u2019s talking points about the MEK, all while knowing that not one word of that propaganda was true.<\/p>\n Has anyone ever heard article of a major Western publication be published by secret service of a totalitarian regime beforehand? #Spiegel<\/a> provided article on #Iran<\/a> opposition to MOIS 3 months ago & MOIS published it, attributing #Spiegel<\/a>. Hook, line, and sinker. #Spiegel_FakeNews<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/wDtt4ztul1<\/a><\/p>\n — Shahin Gobadi (@gobadi) February 19, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n