Iranian exiles rally for regime change in their homeland

Iranian exiles rally for regime change in their homeland
The Boston Globe
April 20, 2003‏
By Bryan Bender, Globe Correspondent

WASHINGTON -- Chanting ''down with the mullahs,'' thousands of Iranian exiles demonstrated yesterday against the Islamic government in Tehran, calling attention to the regime's reported attacks against opposition fighters along the Iraq-Iran border and attempts by ruling clerics and security services to meddle in Iraq's internal affairs and foment fundamentalist religious opposition to the US military presence.

Several thousand supporters of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran gathered on the National Mall, as other Iranian exiles took to the streets in Berlin, Rome, Stockholm, Madrid, Toronto, Vancouver, British Columbia, and other cities.

Waving Iranian flags, they protested what they say have been Iranian Revolutionary Guard attacks on the organization's military wing, the National Liberation Army of Iran -- also known as the People's Mujahideen Organization, which operates in Iraq. Twenty-eight resistance fighters have been killed in the attacks.

Opposition leaders also said the Iranian government, which President Bush called an ''axis of evil'' for its support of terrorism and development of weapons of mass destruction, is trying to undermine Iraq's nascent attempts at representative government.

''We are here to show solidarity and try to inform world public opinion that the biggest challenge and threat to US forces, Iraqi Kurds, and the Iranian resistance is one thing, and that is the Iranian regime,'' said Alireza Jafarzadeh, US representative for the council, which is part of a 560-member Iranian Parliament in exile.

… For their part, the group's leaders say the resistance fighters -- estimated to number in the tens of thousands -- are independent and receive financial support from exiles worldwide. They seek a new democratic Iranian government, they say, that respects all faiths and guarantees women's rights.

The group contends that as many as 3,000 Iranian government forces, backed by armored vehicles and rocket-propelled grenades, crossed into Iraq last week, and that religious leaders are trying to foment opposition to US reconstruction efforts within the Shia Muslim majority of Iraq and export their brand of militant Islam. They blame the Iranian government for involvement in the killing in Najaf by a mob on April 10 of Shia cleric Abdul Majid al-Khoei, a prominent Hussein opponent who had earlier urged cooperation with US forces.

Members of the group consider themselves a liberal democratic alternative to the religious rulers of Iran. Ali Parsa is a history professor at California State University at Fullerton, who traveled to Washington yesterday for the rally.

''As an Iranian, along with thousands of Iranians around the world, I am here to show our support and concern that Iran, using the vacuum in Iraq, has infiltrated and occupied Iraq with its forces to destroy the resistance. The world should not ignore the biggest Islamic fundamentalist threat.''