Senior U.S. Lawmakers Meet Maryam Rajavi

Lawmakers call for comprehensive sanctions against the regime, expulsion of the IRGC from the region

Senior Members of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States House of Representatives, Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), Chair of the Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats, and Judge Ted Poe (R-TX), Chair of the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Non-Proliferation and Trade, met with Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran on Saturday, February 24, 2018.

In this meeting which took place at Mrs. Rajavi’s residence in Auvers-sur-Oise,, the two sides discussed the uprising by the Iranian people that began on December 28, 2017, its consequences and the options before the international community.

The senior U.S. lawmakers condemned the Iranian regime for its brutal crackdown on the protests and underscored that the international community must break its silence and inaction vis-à-vis the atrocities perpetrated by the regime against its own citizens. They also urged the U.S. Government to impose comprehensive sanctions, including financial and banking sanctions on Iranian regime’s officials and entities, especially those involved in suppressing the protesters. They also called for measures that would enable the Iranian people to overcome the blocking of the internet and allow them access to communication systems. The lawmakers urged the U.S. Government to force the expulsion of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and its proxy militias from the countries in the region.

“The uprising marked a turning point in the struggle of the Iranian people to attain freedom and democracy,” Mrs. Rajavi said, adding that the “chants of ‘death to Khamenei’ and ‘death to Rouhani,’ and ‘reformer, hardliner, the game is now over’ made it palpably clear that the Iranian people demand the overthrow of this regime.”

She emphasized that this uprising will continue until the overthrow of the clerical regime because the underlying factors that propelled the uprising, namely economic mismanagement, rampant government corruption, increasing poverty and inflation, escalating suppression, and a whole host of other social and political problems cannot and will not be resolved.

The NCRI president-elect added, “With the Iranian people’s uprising, the clerical regime has entered its final phase and as such any investment in this regime is doomed to fail. It is time for the international community to stand with the Iranian people and not with the clerical regime.” Mrs. Rajavi also called on the international community to exert greater pressure on the clerical regime to secure the speedy release of all protesters.

“The U.S. Government needs to officially recognize that the Iranian people reject the corrupt and repressive mullah regime in Iran. We, in Congress and the U.S. Government must make it clear that we are on the side of the Iranian people and not their Islamic, fanatic and corrupt allies who oppress them,” Rep. Rohrabacher said.

Rep. Poe emphasized that the world community must hold the Iranian regime’s officials accountable for their atrocities and assist the people of Iran in their noble quest for freedom and democracy.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran