MPG Presentation to Members of Congress
-Slowly but surely we are working to free our beloved Iran from the arab-parast mullahs who seek to destroy it. Below are the transcripts of the speeches that were made by members of Marze Por Gohar and its supporters to Congress. I wanted to thank the speakers and especially Mr. Farahanipour for working tirelessly for such a noble cause. Enjoy.
_________________________________________________
Roozbeh Farahanipour:
I’m happy to be given the opportunity to talk about Iran, the United States and the Islamic Republic. I prefer to speak in mother tongue Persian, however seeing that I’m a guest here, out of respect I will make my brief comments in English.
This year marks the 7th anniversary of the uprising of 1999, which I along with other members of the Marze Por Gohar Party and other nationalistic organizations such as Hezbe Mellate Iran, led. Unlike others who claim to have organized and or headed the protests even though they were either out of the country or in cushy jail cells, my fellow comrades and I were on the streets leading protests.
However I don’t join you today to commemorate this anniversary, rather I’ve come to inequitably reiterate that regime change, just as was the case during the uprising, is still the only realistic policy of securing stability in the greater Persian Gulf region.
It should be obvious that neither the balkanization of Iran nor normalization of ties between the United States and the Islamic Republic will not provide the world the long-term stability it seeks in the region.
Iran can only be stable when its citizens have sole sovereignty, and thus we must overthrow the theocratic Islamic Republic and establish a secular republic by means of a people’s revolution. We are genuinely relieved that other Iranian organizations have finally accepted that a revolution is the only path forward, and perhaps this can serve as point of unity for opposition groups.
A revolution is the least costly and viable option that is left for Iranians and the world in general. Certainly the eminent revolution will have a price, after all freedom is not free, however the alternatives to a revolution such a military confrontation, will bear a much higher price for Iran and the international community.
To achieve our goal we must organize the Iranian youth that according to some estimates accounts for as much as 70% of the population, journalists, workers, unions, brothers, sisters, aunts, grandpas and every other Iranian.
Marze Por Gohar from the day of its inception has been secular, and it should be noted that Iran is the only country in the greater Persian Gulf region whose population base is becoming more and more secular, not more religious. The international community must support this trend of greater secularization in Iran, instead of constantly espousing the virtues of religious democracy. The United States in particular must take concrete steps to provide support for Iranians who are quite arguably the most pro-US population in the region.
Our window of opportunity to organize a revolution is very small, and I hope the international community will lend a helping hand to us in riding Iran of the Islamic Republic and the establishment of secular democracy.
Lisa Daftari:
I was reading Nobel Prize nominee Kenneth Timmerman’s book on the imminent dangers of Iran’s Nuclear Proliferation program when I first came across Roozbeh Farahanipour name. At the end of his book, Timmerman cited an episode in very recent history that may have been more significant than many of us gave notice. He spoke of the student uprisings in Tehran in July of 1999. More interesting for me, a student journalist, always hungry for local news stories that no one has scraped up yet…Timmerman wrote that Roozbeh Farahanipour, the organizer of the protests and head of the political organization responsible for the uprising was now living in Los Angeles. I had to get the story.
As I conducted my pre-interviews with Farahanipour I realized how much we have in common…we live in the same zip code, work out at the same gym, both have journalism backgrounds…but there is one major difference…he is a revolutionary. While I am busy chasing down the next local news story, only down the street… he is attempting to bring down a regime thousands of miles away that does not believe in human rights, stones their women and persecutes their religious and cultural minorities.
Unfortunately the LA Times had beat me to the story. But there was still more to uncover. The training I had in my journalism classes taught me that the best stories talk about what is to come, rather than report what has already happened. So instead of writing a newspaper piece like I had originally intended, I pitched the deeper story I could tell in documentary format for my master’s thesis. The film runs 24 minutes. It describes Farahanipour’s story and his political party’s ongoing fight to present themselves as a viable option for regime change. It takes a close look at how this youth movement took shape. From their organization of the student uprisings in 1999, credited as the most significant uprising in the last 27 years, to the torture, imprisonment and their final escape fro Iran to the U.S. only a few years ago. The film focuses in on their goals, accomplishments and the obstacles that stand in the way of an opposition group striving to bring secularism to the region.
It has been both a fortunate and rewarding experience to work on a subject so integral to our current global agenda. I thank you all for giving me the opportunity to share my first film with you.
Faryar Nikbakht:
Religious intolerance and extremism are at the root of today’s intolerance of political and philosophical ideas inside Iran as well as the ideological explanation for the aggressive tendencies of the Islamic Republic of Iran internationally.
At this time we are witnessing various efforts on the part of the Islamic Republic who forces the minority representatives inside Iran to speak out on their behalf about the ideal and perfect situation of minorities under the current regime. We are also reading on occasion, misleading reports by misinformed or sympathetic journalists who re-iterate the same theme, trying to portray the regime in Iran as a tolerant and democratic one, closing their eyes on an ongoing and gradual religious cleansing process in order to promote their temporary political agenda.
The fact that the majority of non-Muslims have left Iran speaks for itself; but the issue of the remaining minorities inside Iran rather than being misinterpreted and misrepresented as evidence of the benevolence of the regime, must be seen as an example of human survival efforts by the last remainders of mostly ancient cultures and communities who hope to outlast the current adversities and indignities, as they witness more and more members of their communities emigrate to free countries, their heritage being destroyed and their children growing up with hidden identities and dual personalities into a dark future. This is also a testimony to the enduring historical bonds between the minorities and Muslim Iranians who in spite of the situation have kept their humanity and affection alive. The minorities, also called “Infidels under Contract” or the Dhimmi Kuffar , who share all the good and bad of the Iranian society with their Muslim countrymen, suffer under specific additional laws and practices, ethnic as well as religious humiliation and discrimination.
Policy of Planned Extinction of Non Muslims
The Islamic Republic of Iran has knowingly and systematically attempted to decimate the non-Muslim communities in Iran, by forcing them to emigrate, convert or submit to their interpretation of Islam, even advocating the same fate for the whole world population declared in IRI Constitutional articles and official statements and letters of IRI high officials.
By introducing discriminatory laws and adopting threatening and humiliating practices, the Islamic Republic has reduced the minority citizens of Iran into demoralized, inferior second class citizens.
By means of expropriations of much of their personal and community assets and by systematically preventing them from engaging freely and with equal opportunity, in all sectors of economic and social activity, the Islamic Republic has sapped the legitimate economic potentials of Iranian non-Muslims, reducing their chances to survive as communities, cultures and religions.
By means of systematic hysterical anti Jewish and anti Bahaii propaganda, the Islamic Republic has created the potential of mass extermination of these minorities at the hands of fanatic extremists at a moment’s notice. This is a fact that on many occasions has been communicated as a threat to these minorities by intelligence officials and fanatic militias.
By means of periodical arrests, executions and assassinations, the Islamic Republic has tried to confine the Jews, Christians and Bahaiis under absolute submission, in an atmosphere of fear, totally dependent upon the mercy of the most merciless elements within the Islamic Regime.
By legitimizing discriminatory laws and practices, the IRI regime has sanctioned the ongoing destruction of many Sunni and Sufi Muslim centers or places of worship, and by preventing all minorities from free practice of faith and advocating their beliefs, they try to realize an irreversible and rapid numeric decline of non Muslims and the migration of non-Shiites out of major cities.
_________________________________________________
Roozbeh Farahanipour:
I’m happy to be given the opportunity to talk about Iran, the United States and the Islamic Republic. I prefer to speak in mother tongue Persian, however seeing that I’m a guest here, out of respect I will make my brief comments in English.
This year marks the 7th anniversary of the uprising of 1999, which I along with other members of the Marze Por Gohar Party and other nationalistic organizations such as Hezbe Mellate Iran, led. Unlike others who claim to have organized and or headed the protests even though they were either out of the country or in cushy jail cells, my fellow comrades and I were on the streets leading protests.
However I don’t join you today to commemorate this anniversary, rather I’ve come to inequitably reiterate that regime change, just as was the case during the uprising, is still the only realistic policy of securing stability in the greater Persian Gulf region.
It should be obvious that neither the balkanization of Iran nor normalization of ties between the United States and the Islamic Republic will not provide the world the long-term stability it seeks in the region.
Iran can only be stable when its citizens have sole sovereignty, and thus we must overthrow the theocratic Islamic Republic and establish a secular republic by means of a people’s revolution. We are genuinely relieved that other Iranian organizations have finally accepted that a revolution is the only path forward, and perhaps this can serve as point of unity for opposition groups.
A revolution is the least costly and viable option that is left for Iranians and the world in general. Certainly the eminent revolution will have a price, after all freedom is not free, however the alternatives to a revolution such a military confrontation, will bear a much higher price for Iran and the international community.
To achieve our goal we must organize the Iranian youth that according to some estimates accounts for as much as 70% of the population, journalists, workers, unions, brothers, sisters, aunts, grandpas and every other Iranian.
Marze Por Gohar from the day of its inception has been secular, and it should be noted that Iran is the only country in the greater Persian Gulf region whose population base is becoming more and more secular, not more religious. The international community must support this trend of greater secularization in Iran, instead of constantly espousing the virtues of religious democracy. The United States in particular must take concrete steps to provide support for Iranians who are quite arguably the most pro-US population in the region.
Our window of opportunity to organize a revolution is very small, and I hope the international community will lend a helping hand to us in riding Iran of the Islamic Republic and the establishment of secular democracy.
Lisa Daftari:
I was reading Nobel Prize nominee Kenneth Timmerman’s book on the imminent dangers of Iran’s Nuclear Proliferation program when I first came across Roozbeh Farahanipour name. At the end of his book, Timmerman cited an episode in very recent history that may have been more significant than many of us gave notice. He spoke of the student uprisings in Tehran in July of 1999. More interesting for me, a student journalist, always hungry for local news stories that no one has scraped up yet…Timmerman wrote that Roozbeh Farahanipour, the organizer of the protests and head of the political organization responsible for the uprising was now living in Los Angeles. I had to get the story.
As I conducted my pre-interviews with Farahanipour I realized how much we have in common…we live in the same zip code, work out at the same gym, both have journalism backgrounds…but there is one major difference…he is a revolutionary. While I am busy chasing down the next local news story, only down the street… he is attempting to bring down a regime thousands of miles away that does not believe in human rights, stones their women and persecutes their religious and cultural minorities.
Unfortunately the LA Times had beat me to the story. But there was still more to uncover. The training I had in my journalism classes taught me that the best stories talk about what is to come, rather than report what has already happened. So instead of writing a newspaper piece like I had originally intended, I pitched the deeper story I could tell in documentary format for my master’s thesis. The film runs 24 minutes. It describes Farahanipour’s story and his political party’s ongoing fight to present themselves as a viable option for regime change. It takes a close look at how this youth movement took shape. From their organization of the student uprisings in 1999, credited as the most significant uprising in the last 27 years, to the torture, imprisonment and their final escape fro Iran to the U.S. only a few years ago. The film focuses in on their goals, accomplishments and the obstacles that stand in the way of an opposition group striving to bring secularism to the region.
It has been both a fortunate and rewarding experience to work on a subject so integral to our current global agenda. I thank you all for giving me the opportunity to share my first film with you.
Faryar Nikbakht:
Religious intolerance and extremism are at the root of today’s intolerance of political and philosophical ideas inside Iran as well as the ideological explanation for the aggressive tendencies of the Islamic Republic of Iran internationally.
At this time we are witnessing various efforts on the part of the Islamic Republic who forces the minority representatives inside Iran to speak out on their behalf about the ideal and perfect situation of minorities under the current regime. We are also reading on occasion, misleading reports by misinformed or sympathetic journalists who re-iterate the same theme, trying to portray the regime in Iran as a tolerant and democratic one, closing their eyes on an ongoing and gradual religious cleansing process in order to promote their temporary political agenda.
The fact that the majority of non-Muslims have left Iran speaks for itself; but the issue of the remaining minorities inside Iran rather than being misinterpreted and misrepresented as evidence of the benevolence of the regime, must be seen as an example of human survival efforts by the last remainders of mostly ancient cultures and communities who hope to outlast the current adversities and indignities, as they witness more and more members of their communities emigrate to free countries, their heritage being destroyed and their children growing up with hidden identities and dual personalities into a dark future. This is also a testimony to the enduring historical bonds between the minorities and Muslim Iranians who in spite of the situation have kept their humanity and affection alive. The minorities, also called “Infidels under Contract” or the Dhimmi Kuffar , who share all the good and bad of the Iranian society with their Muslim countrymen, suffer under specific additional laws and practices, ethnic as well as religious humiliation and discrimination.
Policy of Planned Extinction of Non Muslims
The Islamic Republic of Iran has knowingly and systematically attempted to decimate the non-Muslim communities in Iran, by forcing them to emigrate, convert or submit to their interpretation of Islam, even advocating the same fate for the whole world population declared in IRI Constitutional articles and official statements and letters of IRI high officials.
By introducing discriminatory laws and adopting threatening and humiliating practices, the Islamic Republic has reduced the minority citizens of Iran into demoralized, inferior second class citizens.
By means of expropriations of much of their personal and community assets and by systematically preventing them from engaging freely and with equal opportunity, in all sectors of economic and social activity, the Islamic Republic has sapped the legitimate economic potentials of Iranian non-Muslims, reducing their chances to survive as communities, cultures and religions.
By means of systematic hysterical anti Jewish and anti Bahaii propaganda, the Islamic Republic has created the potential of mass extermination of these minorities at the hands of fanatic extremists at a moment’s notice. This is a fact that on many occasions has been communicated as a threat to these minorities by intelligence officials and fanatic militias.
By means of periodical arrests, executions and assassinations, the Islamic Republic has tried to confine the Jews, Christians and Bahaiis under absolute submission, in an atmosphere of fear, totally dependent upon the mercy of the most merciless elements within the Islamic Regime.
By legitimizing discriminatory laws and practices, the IRI regime has sanctioned the ongoing destruction of many Sunni and Sufi Muslim centers or places of worship, and by preventing all minorities from free practice of faith and advocating their beliefs, they try to realize an irreversible and rapid numeric decline of non Muslims and the migration of non-Shiites out of major cities.
posted by Ruzbeh Hosseini at 1:20 PM
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