As the children of the Iranian nation, they made the ultimate sacrifice in the struggle overthrow of the mullahs’ religious dictatorship
Text of speech by Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the Iranian Resistance, at the ceremony in Auvers-sur-Oise commemorating the martyrs of the missile attack on Camp Liberty
November 1, 2015
Greetings to you all.
From here, we extend our heartfelt salutations to the blood-drenched and devastated Liberty and its lofty martyrs.
Although Khamenei failed to achieve his evil objective, the Thursday evening attack on Camp Liberty was one the most horrific assaults against the PMOI to date. It was intended to massacre all of the freedom-fighters at Liberty.
This massive barrage of 80 missiles continued uninterrupted for 10 minutes. Dozens of missiles were setting everything on fire and destroying everywhere. The massive shockwaves demolished even the protective concrete walls, scattering them around.
It was a Tsunami of destruction and fire. It appeared as though all the crimes and atrocities perpetrated by Khomeini and Khamenei’s over the past three decades had been compressed into 10 minutes.
Nevertheless, God’s blessing and the residents’ vigilance, timely reaction and fighting spirit saved them from being massacred so that they could continue to inspire the people of Iran with their resistance and perseverance.
I do not know how to describe the life-and death struggle of women and men who stood up amid blood and fire?
I can only tell them: What you did in those breathtaking moments encapsulated your nation’s faith, passion and wherewithal for freedom.
In the darkness of that cold night, you were extinguishing the fire with primitive equipment, pulling out the bodies of your comrades from under the rubble, and running around with wounded and bleeding bodies.
Indeed, you had become one body and showed that there are no limits to the determination and motivation of human beings who have chosen to fight for freedom.
I was with you and you were in my thoughts at all hours of that night. I was with you in the bunkers, when paying last respects to the martyrs and when attending to the wounds of the injured. I saw your bloodied faces and clenched fists. And I saw you raising victory signs. And of course, I was not alone. Anyone who saw those pictures was overwhelmed with pride and honor.
Truly, you could you not have conveyed to all that the enemy had been defeated any better!
On that night, amid the fire, smoke, explosions and shockwaves, your unwavering resolve and your belief in the resistance and the fight for victory, displayed the magnificence of this glorious struggle for Iran’s freedom. You proved the PMOI’s steadfastness and wherewithal.
I salute you, your struggle and persistence. And I salute your martyred comrades.
The raging flames of humanity’s aware conscience
I salute you because you made the ultimate sacrifice, because you are the raging flames of humanity’s aware conscience.
I hail you because you have dedicated your lives [to the ideal of freedom] and because you have refused to surrender and to be frightened.
I hail you because you embody our fettered nation’s passion for freedom and emancipation. I salute you.
I salute my beloved brothers Manouchehr Barati, Hamid Dehghan, Akbar Alidoust, Hassan Tofighjoo, Hamid-Reza Imeni, Abu-Taleb Hashemi, Kiumars Yousefi, Hossein Gandomi, Farshid Rabi’i, Hassan Ebrahimi, Mohammad-Ali Mirzai’i, Sohrab Homayounfar, Behzad Mirshahi, Hossein Adawi, Rajab Ghorbani, Reza Vadian, Sharif Vaisi, Hossein Sarvazad, Ahmad Meschian, Jassem Ghassir and Javad Salari.
I salute my beloved sister, Nayyereh Rabi’i, a PMOI official who was present on the scenes of battle.
And I salute the gallant National Liberation Army commander, my beloved brother, Hossein Abrishamchi. With a 40-year career in the struggle against two dictatorships, he was capable leader, who led the way during the difficult periods of our struggle. He was always persistent, had something new to offer and had tremendous faith in the path to, and in the ideal of, freedom. He made the ultimate sacrifice in the path to freedom and became one of its shining symbols.
During the ceremonies commemorating the anniversary of Imam Hussein’s martyrdom, on Ashura, five days before your martyrdom, you were reciting this poem for him:
In the middle of this desert filled with calamity;
Amid this night riddled with conspiracies;
We pledge to crush all the barriers, all cages and gallows.
Indeed, each and every one of you followed in the footsteps of your historical leader, Imam Hussein, and made the ultimate sacrifice.
Truly, no fire is capable of burning you.
So, I will also repeat with you:
Blessed are those who write their pledge for freedom in blood;
Blessed are those who are determined to shatter the night even in captivity.
From now on, you are going to inspire passion and power in all brave young men and women, who have risen up to struggle against the religious dictatorship. You inspire anyone who is revolting against oppression and tyranny.
Attack on Liberty revealed the mullahs’ desperation in the face of the Iranian people’s burning desire for freedom
Now, I turn to you mothers who hold up images of your martyred or imprisoned children in the streets and intersections all across Iran and expose the truth about the clerical regime and its Guards Corps.
I am addressing you brave women and men who took part in the memorial for Reyhaneh Jabbari and Sattar Beheshti, and called on your fellow compatriots to rise up and struggle against the regime;
I am addressing you courageous political prisoners in Khamenei’s dungeons who declared your solidarity with the residents of Liberty;
And I am addressing all my countrymen and women who were outraged upon learning of the regime’s atrocious crime in Liberty.
You should know that your perseverance, resolve and struggle to topple the clerical regime have shaken up the regime to its foundation.
The attack on Camp Liberty was the byproduct of the regime’s desperation in the face of the Iranian nation’s burning desire for freedom.
I therefore call on you and on all the youths and Ashrafis across our nation to rise up and expand their struggle and resistance to overthrow the regime. In doing so, they can become the living example of Liberty martyrs. The blood and sacrifice of martyrs will continue to inspire the spirit of resistance until the fettered Iran is free again.
Velayat-e Faqih regime is desperate, in disarray, vulnerable, and has no way out of its current impasse
Never before has the religious dictatorship been so desperate, in such disarray, vulnerable and in such an impasse.
Dangers which have encircled the regime prompted Khamenei to close down the regime’s nuclear sites.
In Syria, the mullahs have suffered successive setbacks and casualties. In Iraq, they face unrelenting popular demonstrations against their agents and operatives. In Iran, they have no room to maneuver.
In other words, years of investment in the nuclear program as well as in Syria, Iraq and Yemen have been squandered. It will not be long before the mullahs’ investment in the Guards Corps will also be lost. And it will not be long before Iran’s young generation rises rise up and destroys this criminal, murderous and corrupt regime.
In the past few months, the clerical regime’s apologists with vested interests in preserving the mullahs’ rule, had been struggling to create the illusion that the ruling theocracy would moderate and open up once the nuclear deal is signed. They claimed that subsequent to the deal, Hassan Rouhani’s promises of moderation would be initiated. But the regime’s promises for improvement and moderation have so far only resulted in the largest number of executions in the past quarter century.
Do acid attacks on our sisters in Isfahan, the murder of Sunnis, and the torture of political prisoners to death represent moderation? Is the crime against humanity at Camp Liberty, for which Rouhani, as head of the Supreme National Security Council is directly responsible, a sign of moderation?
Then why is it that European governments are willing to roll out the red carpet for such criminals? Why do they reach out to those who the Iranian people want prosecuted?
In reality, the post-nuclear-deal era is the time for the people of Iran to raise their most basic demands, including their long-denied freedoms.
This is why Khamenei massacred the PMOI with a missile barrage. It is because the Iranian nation demands freedom. It is because this nation is crying out loud that it does not want this regime and that it must be overthrown.
We say to the ruling mullahs that all the measures you took in all these years to suppress the Iranian people’s freedoms have failed.
The time has come to hold the ruling mullahs accountable for their crimes.
The time has come to bring down this regime, which cannot maintain its grip on power without shedding blood. This is particularly the case because all of the deceptive maneuvers by its internal factions have totally failed. Neither Rafsanjani’s “construction”, nor Khatami’s so-called “moderation”, nor Rouhani’s claims of miracles after the nuclear agreement brought about any change.
There is only one way to establish democracy and freedom in Iran and rescue it from poverty, destitution and backwardness: the overthrow of the velayat-e faqih regime in its entirety.
It is exactly for this reason that Khamenei launched a missile attack on the residents of Liberty, who have been leading the struggle to overthrow the regime and to bring freedom to the people of Iran.
As the Iranian Resistance Leader Massoud Rajavi said, without the PMOI, “What would the people of Iran be proud of? On whom would our enchained nation and young Ashrafis pin hopes on? Who would have given the people of Iran their ideals? And on whom the people of Iran could have relied?”
Preparing the grounds for missile attack on Camp Liberty
The Iranian regime prepared the grounds for this attack in recent months.
First, it dispatched the Intelligence Ministry teams in the guise of families to the gates of Liberty. In the meantime, it sent a number of agents to countries across Europe to create mayhem.
Simultaneously, the Intelligence Ministry’s websites and televisions stepped up their slandering of the Resistance to set the stage for the attack.
On the opposite side, in recent days, we have seen the outpouring of unsparing affection and support towards the residents of Liberty by Iranians in Iran and abroad, including the political prisoners.
From the bottom of my heart, I offer my sincere gratitude for their sentiments. Their statements and messages reflect the Iranian people’s outcry in condemnation of the Iranian regime for attacking the PMOI.
These expressions of support contrast the propaganda by the Iranian regime’s mercenaries who are parroting the smears of the notorious Intelligence Ministry by shedding crocodile tears for the martyrs and blaming the PMOI and the Resistance’s Leader for this massacre.
Obviously, there is a nefarious division of work. The religious dictatorship in Tehran undertakes the military part and fires the rockets. Its tentacles abroad launch the political offensive and slurs, as heavy in scope as the missile barrage at Liberty.
In the past, the Intelligence Ministry had directed its agents abroad to also assail the regime in a bid to lend legitimacy to their slanders and insults against the PMOI. The regime is so desperate now, however, that its mouthpieces abroad are laying the entire blame on the PMOI.
These are of course nothing new and only complement the suppression, torture and execution of the Mojahedin and all freedom-fighters wherever they are.
Without a competent Leader such a generation could not have been reared and such a resistance could not have been waged. Never!
Indeed, without such struggle and sacrifice, and without such resolute perseverance against this anti-human regime, our nation would have had to pay a heavy price to distinguish friend from foe once Iran is free again.
I salute the martyrs!
I salute the champions of freedom!
The US and the UN must end their irresponsible approach to the protection of Camp Liberty
Please allow me to briefly talk about the special responsibilities and commitments of international parties regarding the protection of Camp Liberty.
As I declared shortly after the attack, the Government of Iraq and the United Nations are officially and legally responsible because they signed a Memorandum of Understanding in December 2011, declaring Camp Liberty as a “Temporary Transit Location (TTL)”. In our view, however, the Iranian regime’s agents in the Government of Iraq are responsible for this attack similar to the six previous bloodbaths in camps Ashraf and Liberty. The United States and the United Nations are fully aware of this reality.
So far, the United States and the UN have not fulfilled their official commitments regarding protection of the Mojahedin, including their repeated pledge to protect them once they were relocated from Ashraf to Liberty. They must put an end to this irresponsible and catastrophic approach. Despite numerous warnings, Camp Liberty is still being run by murderers of Ashraf residents and agents associated with the Iranian regime. In the meantime, relocation to other countries, a betrayed promise by the United Nations and the US, is now facing opposition and obstruction.
Camp Liberty’s urgent needs
Given the urgent situation at Camp Liberty, I would like to emphasize that the following steps must be taken:
- First, providing urgent medical care for the wounded and stationing a team of medical specialists in the camp;
- Second, providing the necessary equipment, tools and material to repair the devastated sections;
- Third, providing security and protective needs, including returning the T-walls, protective vests, helmets and medical equipment as well as providing the necessary facilities needed for the wounded;
- Fourth, initiating a UN investigation into this savage attack and prosecuting the perpetrators.
People’s Mojahedin embodies the Iranian people’s resistance against oppression
Although the PMOI has suffered greatly and paid a high price in Camp Liberty so far, it will continue to fight as long as there is oppression and tyranny in Iran and the Iranian people are denied their freedom,
After all, what is the meaning of the People’s Mojahedin?
- The People’s Mojahedin means the Iranian people’s yearning for freedom;
- It means the Iranian people’s steadfastness against oppression;
- It means keeping alight the flames of hope;
- It means rekindling friendship and solidarity among the people of Iran.
This is the essence of freedom.
Khomeini failed to eliminate this movement by massacring 30,000 political prisoners. Nor can Khamenei annihilate it by a missile barrage.
The martyrs of October 29, 2015 at Liberty, the martyrs of September 2013, April 2011 and July 2009 at Camp Ashraf, the martyrs of operation of Eternal Light in 1988 and the 120,000 martyrs of freedom symbolize the determination of the Iranian people, the People’s Mojahedin and the Iranian Resistance. They say the religious dictatorship must be overthrown.
And we renew our pledge to the martyrs and to the brave combatants that we will fight with our blood and our faith until the dawn of freedom for the people of Iran arrives.
Hail to the martyrs.
Hail to freedom.