MEK Iran Celebrated Its 54th Anniversary

Last month, on Friday, September 6, 2019, the Mujahedin-e Khalq, commonly known as MEK Iran, celebrated the 54th anniversary of its founding. Earlier that week, on September 3, MEK Iran held an event to mark the anniversary at its new home, Ashraf 3, in Albania. Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) was invited to address the audience at the event.

On the occasion of the 54th anniversary of the founding of MEK Iran, Maryam Rajavi paid homage to the MEK founders, Mohammad Hanifnejad, Saeed Mohsen, and Ali Asghar Badizadegan, who founded MEK Iran on September 6, 1965 to overthrow the Shah's dictatorship, and were executed 47 years ago by the Shah’s criminal regime. Since 1981, MEK Iran has been fighting to overthrow the mullahs' regime and establish democracy, freedom and human rights in Iran. Over the years, MEK Iran has proven itself to be the only democratic opposition capable of rallying Iranians against the regime, through a formidable organizational structure and popular network inside Iran.

In her addressing, the NCRI’s President-elect said, “MEK Iran has gained such prominence in Iran's political landscape and liberation struggle that would have been inconceivable six decades ago. From enduring the great blow by the Shah's secret police SAVAK, to overcoming the betrayal of pseudo-leftist opportunists, and from blocking the path of Khomeini and the monster of religious tyranny to confronting fundamentalism in the region; from epics created in Khomeini's torture chambers and the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners, to promoting the democratic alternative of the Iranian people. This capacity for perseverance has enabled the MEK Iran to rise like a phoenix from its ashes many times, building everything anew multiple times and advancing to new heights. From the uprising of June 20, 1981, and the establishment of the democratic alternative (the NCRI) to forming the National Liberation Army, and from the decade-long period of persistence in Ashraf (Iraq) to building a thousand Ashrafs and Resistance units in Iran.

Highlighting the pioneering role of women in the MEK’s leadership, Mrs. Rajavi noted, “Women have been and still are at the helm of this organization for over 30 years of its 54-year long existence… And now, they have been replicated in the ranks of the Central Council of the MEK Iran, made up of 1,000 women and is charged with the leadership of the MEK Iran organization, [and joined by] a long line of men, liberated from ideological chains and the culture of patriarchy; and are restless and passionate about liberating Iran and saving it from the devastations caused by the Shah and Khomeini.”

MEK Iran has survived and flourished for 54 years, because of its reliance solely on the Iranian people and because it has been willing to pay the price for democracy in blood and treasure. MEK Iran has played an important role in Iran’s revolutionary progress over the past century. Its history chronicles the strengthening of the prospect of freedom, popular sovereignty, justice and equality in the country.

MEK Iran, with 54 years of struggle for freedom, is an exceptional movement in the history of Iran, a fact that is irrefutable to it its proponents and opponents. This is an organization with a dynamic and scientific ideology, progressive goals, human values, a strong structure, and an unbreakable resolve, proven by more than 120,000 martyrs fallen for freedom in the past half-century.

Today, thanks to the honest efforts and sacrifices of the MEK, the Iranian society has distanced itself from the mullahs' regime and is pushing it toward its overthrow. While the regime and its front organizations who pose as opposition groups try to marginalize the MEK, history will undoubtedly reveal the truth.