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Iranian Americans Hold Photo Exhibition and Rally Outside State Department, Call for Accountability<\/strong><\/p>\n

WASHINGTON, DC, October 21, 2020\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 In an elaborate photo exhibition held by the Organization of Iranian American Communities (OIAC) outside the U.S. Department of State building in Washington, DC, prominent speakers and supporters of democratic opposition coalition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), highlighted four decades of systemic arrests, torture and executions in Iran and called on the international community to hold perpetrators of these crimes accountable.<\/p>\n

Prominent political personalities and former political prisoners spoke about the 1988 massacre of 30,000 political prisoners, majority of whom were members of Mujahedin-e-Khalgh (MEK),\u00a0the November 2019 murder of 1,500 protesters<\/a>, and the assassination of dozens of political dissidents abroad. Speakers included former U.S. Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, former Senator Robert Torricelli, as well as former State Department officials Ambassadors Mitchell Reiss and Marc Ginsberg. Former Congressman Ted Poe (R-TX) and former White House official Linda Chavez also addressed the rally.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"victims<\/p>\n

Judge Mukasey reminded global leaders that, \u201cthis regime is not going to change. Rather, it has to be changed. The people who must do that are the Iranian people and it is our job to support them in any way that we can in this struggle.\u201d\u00a0 Former Senator Robert Torricelli noted that, \u201cthe tactics of America of how to help the Iranian people to get to this in the future may or may not change, but the goal does not. The mullahs must fall, and freedom must return to the Iranian people in any form of government that they choose that defends basic liberties.\u201d \u201cAs we look today at the faces of the martyrs,\u201d Mr. Torricelli said, we are \u201cremembering those who lost their lives either in the slaughter of 1988 or on the streets of Tehran and other cities around Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ambassador Mitchell Reiss referenced the qualifications of the NCRI leadership and said, \u201cUnder the leadership of Madam Rajavi, the MEK offers the Iranian people and the world a different future. She offers a democratic alternative based on individual freedom and human dignity, a vision that could not be more different from the dictatorship that now controls Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

Highlighting the necessity to hold Iranian regime officials accountable, Mrs. Linda Chavez said, \u201cit\u2019s important that the State Department focus on what is happening in Iran because this is something that needs to be brought to the international community\u2019s attention. And the United States has the opportunity to go to the United Nations Security Council and to demand that<\/p>\n

justice be brought in these horrendous killings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former Congressman and Judge Ted Poe (R-TX) also lamented the notion that Iranian leaders are yet to face accountability for their crimes and added, \u201cno one has been held accountable, not even the attacks and the plots, the plots of assassination in Albania, Paris and other places. Not even the assassination of Kazem Rajavi in Switzerland.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three former political prisoners, Mrs. Roya Johnson, Mrs. Shirin Nariman and renowned surgeon, Dr. Firouz Daneshgari, addressed the event and provided firsthand accounts of the human rights violations they were subjected to, and witnessed.\u00a0 In her remarks, Hannaneh Amanpour said, \u201cI was only five years old when my father was killed by the Khomeini regime in 1988.\u201d\u00a0 Roya Johnson, spoke about Navid Afkari, a wrestling champion who was executed in Iran on September 12, 2020 and added, \u201cNavid is from the same city that I am from. Shiraz. He was held in the same prison where I was held for 2 years, the notorious prison of Adel Abad. He was probably tortured in the same torture chambers where I was tortured too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Event participants and speakers called for:<\/p>\n