Several thousand Iranians on Saturday came from across Europe to rally in Paris, calling on world leaders to put greater pressure on the Islamic republic’s ruling clerics.
“Instead of appeasing the mullahs, [the international community] should stand side by side with the Iranian people,” National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) president Maryam Rajavi told the rally.
The group is the political wing of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, which Tehran regards as a “terrorist” group.
Photo: Reuters
Iran’s opposition abroad has been emboldened by the fall late last year of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, a longtime ally of Tehran.
“As Syria did with Bashar al-Assad, the Iranian people will free themselves of the mullahs, and it will be in 2025,” former Belgium prime minister Guy Verhofstadt said.
“The strategy of complacency has to change,” he said.
“I don’t think it’s going to happen that way with the US administration this time,” he added.
“The Iranian regime will fall like the Syrian regime fell, at a speed that no one would have predicted,” former Syrian rebel leader Riad al-Asaad told the crowd by video link.
Several speakers at Saturday’s rally voiced hopes that US President Donald Trump’s promise to exert “maximum pressure” against Tehran would help their cause.
Trump has in the past lashed out at Tehran’s nuclear program, but has also expressed a desire to reach a peace deal with Iran.
On Friday, the Islamic republic’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned against negotiations with the US.
“You should not negotiate with such a government, it is unwise, it is not intelligent, it is not honorable to negotiate,” Khamenei told a meeting of military top brass.
In Paris, Rajavi told the rally that the Iranian government’s “cascade of failures” had “pitted the regime’s internal factions against each other over the question of whether or not to negotiate with the United States.”
Police put the turnout at the Paris demonstration at about 6,000.
The throng was decked out in the flags of the NCRI, a lion holding a sword against a green, white and red backdrop, with a sprinkling of a few Ukrainian flags here and there.
“Many of the weapons which are killing our children in Ukraine come from Iran,” said Lara, a Ukrainian living in the German town of Kassel who was bussed into the French capital by the NCRI.
RARE EVENT: While some cultures have a negative view of eclipses, others see them as a chance to show how people can work together, a scientist said Stargazers across a swathe of the world marveled at a dramatic red “Blood Moon” during a rare total lunar eclipse in the early hours of yesterday morning. The celestial spectacle was visible in the Americas and Pacific and Atlantic oceans, as well as in the westernmost parts of Europe and Africa. The phenomenon happens when the sun, Earth and moon line up, causing our planet to cast a giant shadow across its satellite. But as the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon, it did not entirely blot out its white glow — instead the moon glowed a reddish color. This is because the
DEBT BREAK: Friedrich Merz has vowed to do ‘whatever it takes’ to free up more money for defense and infrastructure at a time of growing geopolitical uncertainty Germany’s likely next leader Friedrich Merz was set yesterday to defend his unprecedented plans to massively ramp up defense and infrastructure spending in the Bundestag as lawmakers begin debating the proposals. Merz unveiled the plans last week, vowing his center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) bloc and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) — in talks to form a coalition after last month’s elections — would quickly push them through before the end of the current legislature. Fraying Europe-US ties under US President Donald Trump have fueled calls for Germany, long dependent on the US security umbrella, to quickly
Romania’s electoral commission on Saturday excluded a second far-right hopeful, Diana Sosoaca, from May’s presidential election, amid rising tension in the run-up to the May rerun of the poll. Earlier this month, Romania’s Central Electoral Bureau barred Calin Georgescu, an independent who was polling at about 40 percent ahead of the rerun election. Georgescu, a fierce EU and NATO critic, shot to prominence in November last year when he unexpectedly topped a first round of presidential voting. However, Romania’s constitutional court annulled the election after claims of Russian interference and a “massive” social media promotion in his favor. On Saturday, an electoral commission statement
In front of a secluded temple in southwestern China, Duan Ruru skillfully executes a series of chops and strikes, practicing kung fu techniques she has spent a decade mastering. Chinese martial arts have long been considered a male-dominated sphere, but a cohort of Generation Z women like Duan is challenging that assumption and generating publicity for their particular school of kung fu. “Since I was little, I’ve had a love for martial arts... I thought that girls learning martial arts was super swaggy,” Duan, 23, said. The ancient Emei school where she trains in the mountains of China’s Sichuan Province
RSS