Eurasia Press & News
Tens of thousands rallied in Villepinte, near Parison Saturday (June 30) in support of an Iranian exile group,calling on Western powers to urge democratic changes inTehran.They warned the international community that theclerics are on the verge of obtaining weapons of mass destruction and the only way to stop them was to end the policy of conciliation, exercise firmness and supportdemocratic changes in Iran.
“We are gathered here today to have the voices of eighty million Iranians heard by the world; that the fate of the clerics has come to an end. A free and Democratic Iran is in the process of coming forth,” declared Maryam Rajavi, the President of National Council of Resistance of Iran, who led the demonstration. The NCRI who organised the rally, came to international attention after revealing in 2002 that Tehran was running secret uranium enrichment programmes.
It is the political wing of the People’s Mujahideen, anarmed guerrilla movement listed as a terrorist group by theUnited States.
French authorities imprisoned several members of the NCRI, including leader Maryam Rajavi, briefly in 2003 on a charge of “association with criminals in connection with a terrorist enterprise”.
The group is still banned from fundraising. Hundreds of politicians anddignitaries from the European countries as well as the United States, Canada and Arab countries such as Iraq, Palestine, Jordan, Algeria and Tunisia took part in the rally.
Rajavi was set on defying Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian Prime Minister in her speech to her supporters.
“The voice of Iran is that of chants from young fighters and soldiers, who, during the petroleum rations were shouting: Death to Ahmadinejad,” Rajavi told crowds.
 During today’s gathering of Mujahideens, Iranians called on the EU Council to implement the verdict of the European Communities’ Court of Justice issued last December which removed the People’s Mujahideen Organisation of Iran (PMOI) from its terrorist list.
