{"id":346356,"date":"2026-07-04T20:11:28","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T19:11:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=346356"},"modified":"2026-07-04T20:11:28","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T19:11:28","slug":"the-resistance-that-refused-to-die-and-why-tehran-cannot-sleep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/iran-resistance\/demonizing-mek\/the-resistance-that-refused-to-die-and-why-tehran-cannot-sleep\/","title":{"rendered":"The Resistance That Refused to Die \u2014 and Why Tehran Cannot Sleep"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"NCRI
NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi smiles as she receives flowers from supporters after her release from French prison on July 3, 2003<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Four-minute read<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

On July 3, 2003,<\/span>\u00a0Mrs.\u00a0Maryam Rajavi stepped<\/a> out of a French prison, effectively shattering a multinational effort to permanently paralyze the Iranian opposition. Her release did more than just end an unjust, two-week incarceration\u2014it marked the collapse of an elaborate, politically motivated conspiracy designed to dismantle the movement she led as its president-elect. The message broadcast to the world that summer day was unmistakable: the Resistance was not finished. It was not even\u00a0slowed\u00a0down.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The June 17 Raid and the Price of Oil<\/h2>\n

To understand the gravity of that July victory, one must look back to the morning of June 17, when some 1,300 French police officers descended on the headquarters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran in Auvers-sur-Oise. They arrested\u00a0Mrs.\u00a0Rajavi along with\u00a0roughly 160\u00a0members<\/a>. Computers were seized.\u00a0Bank\u00a0accounts were frozen.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To uncover the true motive behind the raid, one must follow the money\u2014specifically, to the boardrooms of Total, France’s oil colossus, which at the time was cementing multi-billion-dollar gas contracts with the Islamic Republic over the South Pars field. Tehran had a price for those contracts, and that price was the head of the organized Resistance. French authorities obliged.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What followed was a judicial spectacle dressed in the language of\u00a0counter-terrorism\u00a0but engineered in the backrooms of commerce and diplomacy. The charges\u00a0never\u00a0held. An investigative expos\u00e9 later laid bare the political choreography behind the raid:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>The \u00c9lys\u00e9e, the Quai d’Orsay, and Tehran’s intelligence apparatus had quietly coordinated to decapitate a dissident movement in exchange for petroleum access.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When French courts finally weighed the evidence on its merits, the case collapsed<\/a> under its own fraudulence. Every single defendant was acquitted.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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On This Day | July 3, 2003
On July 3, 2003, NCRI President-elect Mrs. Maryam Rajavi was released from prison after being arrested on June 17 during a raid on the NCRI's headquarters in Auvers-sur-Oise, France.<\/p>\n

Her release followed an international campaign that included hunger\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/D2yK6JRj71<\/a><\/p>\n

— SIMAY AZADI TV (@en_simayazadi) July 3, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n