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\u00a0<\/span>\u201cWe need to see a major policy shift in this administration and among our leaders in this city,\u201d said Ms. Linda Chavez, former White House Director of Public Liaison under President George H.W. Bush, addressing a bi-partisan conference in Washington D.C in solidarity with the Iranian people\u2019s uprising and their organized Resistance movement. <\/span>The conference, organized by the Organization of Iranian American Communities<\/a> (OIAC), was attended by several renowned American politicians and featured Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), as its keynote speaker.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n An excerpt of Ms. Chavez\u2019s intervention during the conference on December 17 is as follows. The text is revised for clarity.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Thank you. It is an absolute honor to be with you today and to be with you so close to our capital, to the symbol in this country of our freedoms, and to talk to you about the freedom that the people of Iran have been waiting for so long. It is my privilege not to be a newcomer to this fight. And in fact, I was thinking as I was watching the news and Americans are wonderful people. We are very proud of all of our accomplishments, but we have very short memories.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n And we don’t always recognize that what we’re seeing today is not a recent phenomenon but a very old one. We heard from Governor Locke<\/a> that it’s absolutely true that the most recent uprising in Iran was sparked because a very brave young woman, Mahsa Amini, lost her life because she was unwilling to do what the regime wanted, down to the very inch of her hair that had to be covered. And we saw that there was great revulsion among the people of Iran, recognizing how terrible this was, how wrong it was. And it isn’t because she was attempting to engage in some sort of revolt. She was simply going about her everyday life.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But in Iran, with the regime that is in power and has been in power for more than 40 years, going about your everyday life, living your life as you choose, is not, in fact, an option. <\/span>The <\/span>regime reaches down into every family, into every business, into every gathering to dictate how people have to behave and not just how they have to behave, but what they can believe. Well, there is an alternative to that. And as I said, I’ve been with this movement for a very long time<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Now, we have been amazed at what has gone on in Iran, with all 31 provinces having had demonstrations, people taking to the streets, 220 some cities, and 30,000 arrests of brave Iranians. But the reach of this regime is very, very wide and very, very deep. We heard from Governor Locke about the attempted bombing of one of the NCR’s gatherings in 2008 in Paris. I was there along with others. I think others who were here today were there.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Madam Maryam Rajavi<\/a> has been a leader of this movement for a very long time. And I have been privileged, as I know many of you have, to be with her on many occasions to hear her talk about her belief in the people of Iran and her fight against a regime that represses those people. Maryam Rajavi is leading the resistance, and her leadership, I think, is all the more important because she’s a woman.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In #WashingtonDC<\/a>, @chavezlinda<\/a> endorsed the decades-long leadership of @Maryam_Rajavi<\/a> in the fight against the regime in #Iran<\/a>. pic.twitter.com\/zRuCBKJov2<\/a><\/p>\n — NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) December 21, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n