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IRAN’S opposition forces are plotting a new revolution to topple the tyrannical regime, a Tehran insider has warned.
The self-styled opposition group in exile said their forces won’t stop until they topple supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini’s barbaric rule and put a new democracy in its place.
Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei rules the country with an iron fist
Reuters
AP
APThe National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) operates as a coalition of different resistance groups and are based in France and Albania.
And they claim they are primed to seize power after Khameini’s regime is toppled.
Its biggest group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) – set up in 1965 – even has a president-elect waiting in the wings.
Shahin Gobadi, spokesperson for the PMOI, spoke to The Sun about their bold plan for a revolution and a new free, international-facing Iran as the tightly control nation goes to the polls tomorrow.
He vowed their new Iran would separate religion from law, push for gender equality, better rights for ethnic minorities, an end to capital punishment and put a stop to nuclear weapons.
And these are all things unlikely to be granted as all the official candidates are hardliners seeking to follow in the wake Ebrahim “The Butcher” Raisi – who died in a helicopter crash in May.
The possible frontrunner is Saeed Jalili – a favourite of the Ayatollah and the man who stonewalled the world on nuclear talks as Iran quietly sough to develop the devastating weapons.
His main rivals are Bagher Ghalibaf, a former general and cop who oversaw brutal crackdowns on protesters, and the more moderate Masoud Pezeshkian, the only candidate who has talked up improved relations with the West.
Iran remains at the centre of the storm engulfing the Middle East – coming to brink of war with Israel and backing proxy groups causing chaos across the region, such as the Houthis attacking shipping in the Red Sea.
The NCRI have no candidate – as they are listed as a “terrorist organisation” by the regime in Iran.
Mr Gobadi told us the PMOI wants “a secular Democratic Republic in Iran” and will stop at nothing until it’s achieved.
Gobadi told The Sun that the PMOI is a “very broad network throughout the country”, made up of “resistance units”.
He said: “They have played a key role in directing and contributing to the uprisings that we have seen in the past few years in Iran, particularly since 2018.
“Their role is like a sledgehammer trying to break this repression in Iran. They are very active inside the country.”
By plastering anti-regime messages across the streets, recruiting young people and burning images of their brutal leaders – the activists slowly chip away at Khameini’s power.
Gobadi told us: “They write graffiti against the regime, activating the youth, they burn the big pictures and the banners of Khamenei, Soleimani and Raisi.
“They organise protests and when they have social dissent happening in Iran, they play a key role in directing them and giving them direction.
“They recruit new people. They do obviously take great risk.”
Their role is like a sledgehammer trying to break this repression in Iran. They are very active inside the country
Shahin GobadiMore than 120,000 NCRI rebels, he tells us, have been slaughtered by the regime in the almost 43 years since it was founded.
Alongside government-sanctioned executions, Iran’s brutal morality police stalk the streets and enforce the country’s religious laws – such as strict dress code rules for women.
One woman, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, died in the custody of those police in 2022 after she was arrested for violating the country’s hijab rules.
Her death sparked the country’s largest ever anti-regime movement for women’s rights and freedoms around the country.
Gobadi told The Sun: “There are people on the ground, all the Iranians, from all works of life, all age groups throughout the country. And this is a nationwide movement.
“In the course of the last 43 years that this resistance has been active inside Iran and obviously internationally, more than 120,000 activists have been executed by the regime.”
In Royan, northern Iran, a man named is taken to public gallows to be hanged
APIran's Morality Police
UNDER Iranian law, rooted in Sharia law, women must cover their hair with a hijab and wear long, loose-fitting clothing.
The Guidance Patrol – aka the morality police – are in charge of arresting women who violate the conservative dress code.
Tasked with ensuring Islamic morals are respected, they spend their days patrolling public spaces.
Trawling around in vans, they crack down on “improper” behaviour and clothing.
Women detained by cops are either given a warning or bundled into a van.
They are then whisked away to a “correctional facility” or police station.
They are then lectured on how to dress before being released to their male relatives.
Since the 1980s, many women have been beaten to death by the callous morality police, or tortured into given false confessions.
ROAD MAP TO FREEDOM
Gobadi told The Sun the PMOI has a defined plan, which he was unable to reveal in full because of security reasons, for toppling the regime.
He said: “There’s a clear cut plan for this with a very very clear road map.
“The regime will be overthrown by a popular uprising inside the country.”
This movement, he warned, is coming soon and he has “no doubt” it will be the biggest uprising Iran has seen in a long time.
The regime will be overthrown by a popular uprising inside the country
Shahin GobadiGobadi explained: “There has been at least four major nationwide uprisings in Iran in the last six years alone.
“And each time it’s getting bigger, more pervasive, more inclusive and people’s demands are becoming much much stronger.
“What will spark it, nobody knows, but the fact that it will happen, it’s inevitable.
“That’s our allegiance that we are making to our people, that this is our mission, that’s our commitment to our people.”
EPA
Alamy
A woman stands above a huge protest with her hair loose after Mahsa Amini was killed in custodyWho are the NCRI?
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) is an Iranian political movement made up of a wide coalition of groups fighting for a democratic Iran.
It is essentially a government-in-exile, based outside of Iran, which wants to implement a secular democratic republic and oust Khamenei’s dictatorship regime.
It has hundreds of members made up of different ethnic and religious groups and wants to separate religion from law inside Iran.
Khamenei’s regime enforces incredibly strict laws across the country by binding them to conservative Islamic religious principles.
It’s current leader is Maryam Rajavi.
Currently no one in the country by law is allowed to freely practice another religion outside of Shia Islam, one of the two main groups within the Islamic faith.
Whereas the NCRI is made up of groups including Kurds, Baluchis, Armenians, Jews and Zoroastrians, representing the true variety inside the country’s population.
The primary member of the NCRI is the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI).
It wants to push for equality between men and women throughout the country and fight for better rights for Iranian ethnic minorities.
The NCRI also wants to end capital punishment and axe nuclear weapons.
Its prime member the MEK – or PMOI as they are now more commonly known – hit controversy in the 90s when in 1997 it was dubbed a foreign terrorist organisation by the US government.
Post revolution in 1979 the MEK had positioned itself as an armed resistance – being implicated in attacks on the new regime and as a result subjected to brutal oppression.
It was implicated in the 1981 bombing of the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party, killing 74 people.
The underground network also allegedly carried out a bombing that year which killed Iran’s president and prime minister at the time.
In 1988, up to 30,000 political prisoners linked to the group were executed by Iran’s so-called Death Commission in five months of mass executions.
The PMOI – now no longer armed – was dropped from the list in 2012 and the wider NCRI is embraced by politicians in the UK, US and other parts of the West as an alternative to Iran’s current bloodthirsty regime.
TAKING OUT KHAMEINI
Gobadi hinted that a vital part of this plan could be killing bloodthirsty leader Khameini himself.
Following the 2018 protests, Gobadi said one particular chant has come to encapsulate the revolution in Iran: “Death to Khamenei”.
“When people start chanting [Death to Khameini] in big numbers throughout the streets that means they want to reject the regime in its entirety, they want it overthrown,” he said.
“The regime responded by shooting people point blank. 1500 protesters were killed a matter of a few days and in broad daylight.
When people start chanting [Death to Khameini] in big numbers throughout the streets that means they want to reject the regime in its entirety, they want it overthrown
Shahin Gobadi“The regime made it like a battlefield and people were obviously defenseless.”
But, he said, this did not deter the people of Iran.
“Again we had other protests coming up in January 2020 then we saw the big one coming in September 2022 which continued for months.
“It still persisted for weeks and weeks and months and months.
“This regime, one pillar is killing at home and bloodshed at home.
“But the other pillar is, you know, nurturing terrorist groups proxies, financing them, arming them, training them.
“So as I said, so long as this regime is in power, you are not going to see peace and security in our region.”
Iran's executions & torture
IRAN carries out around 250 executions a year – the most of any country in the world aside from China.
Under its Islamic Penal Code, a death sentence can be handed down for crimes such as kidnapping, adultery, drinking alcohol and political crimes as well as murder.
Victims can also have their fingers amputated for counts of petty theft – leaving just the thumb and palm – using a guillotine-like tool.
Children as young as 12 can also be sentenced to death, which is against international law.
And torture is believed to rife in Iran’s prisons, with electric shocks, floggings, water boarding and sexual violence used on prisoners, according to human rights groups.
Stoning to death for adultery also remains on the statute books, though the latest figures show none have been carried out recently.
Electric shocks in prisons see victims strapped into a chair and forced to confess to crimes with the power being turned up if they don’t.
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