This ridiculous claim comes while on June 20, 1981, upon Khomeini's orders, the peaceful demonstration of more than half a million Tehran residents was turned into a bloodbath by the Guards. Since then, it has been impossible for any opposition political party to engage in political activity. At the same time, some 100,000 have either been executed or killed under medieval torture for political reasons.
"Parties" whose activities Rafsanjani has welcomed are none other factions and groups set up by the regime and totally supportive of the ruling clerics' repressive policies in the past 16 years. Moreover, many of their officials have directly participated in the torture and the slaughter of the Iranian people.
It is worthy of note that the mullahs did not even allow the so-called Iran's Freedom Movement, whose leader Mehdi Bazargan died last January, to engage in political activities, despite the group's persistent expressions of loyalty to the clerical regime over the years.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran - Paris November 25, 1995
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