- Speeches broadcast by 11 satellite channels across Iran and the world

In a speech to a gathering of NLA combatants at a base camp of the National Liberation Army of Iran, broadcast live by 11 satellite channels across Iran, Europe, the United States, the Middle East and parts of Asia, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the Iranian Resistance's President-elect, said: Trampling upon the people's sovereignty, exporting terrorism and practicing misogyny are embedded in the nature and the constitution of this regime. The NLA will sweep aside the mullahs' religious dictatorship and all its different factions. The Iranian nation's will to achieve democracy, peace and social justice will come to fruition before the end of the 20th century.

This elaborate gathering was held to honor June 20, the anniversary of the launching of the Iranian Resistance, and the founding of the National Liberation Army of Iran.

Addressing the meeting, Mr. Massoud Rajavi, President of the National Council of Resistance and the NLA's Commander in Chief, said: After Khatami's election that has led to a troika leadership in the regime, the mullahs are even more divided and have lost their balance. This medieval dictatorship is absolutely incapable of reform and these developments will speed up its inevitable overthrow and trend of events in the Resistance's favor. He added: The political and publicity activities of the Resistance's forces inside Iran to honor June 20 and in support of the NLA and the NCR have taken on extensive dimensions in 180 cities and tripled relative to the past year. In a satellite link-up, 20,000 Iranians in Germany and 7,000 in Sweden, as well as 6,000 Iranians in Denver, rallying across from the Summit of the leaders of the seven industrialized countries, watched the speech of the leadership of the Iranian Resistance directly on wide-screens. They called for a complete boycott of the clerical regime and stated their support for the Iranian Resistance's President-elect Maryam Rajavi.

In his 90 minute speech, frequently interrupted by stormy applause from NLA's combatants and Iranians abroad, Mr. Rajavi stressed that the only means available to the mullahs to continue their rule is suppression and export of terrorism. He called on the G7 leaders to impose diplomatic and trade sanctions against the Iranian regime and demanded that its human rights abuses and terrorism be referred to the UN Security Council for the adoption of binding decisions. He said: The boycott of the regime's sham presidential elections by more than 80% of Iranians reflected their desire to overthrow this illegitimate regime. Mr. Rajavi added: The mullahs' new president was the Minister of "Guidance" for 10 years and a party to suppression, torture and massacre of Iranians. He has frequently said that the regime's survival depended on "expansion," namely the export of fundamentalism. Describing the primary mandate of his Ministry as "export of revolution," he declared in 1986 that the Ministry had organized 30 centers for exporting revolution across the world. In 1989, he said that the only solution to the Rushdie problem was to execute him.

At the Denver gathering, Democratic Congressman Gary Ackerman, a senior member of the Committee on International Relations of the US House of Representatives, made a speech. In Germany, a number of members of the Federal Parliament, including Mr. Joachim Tappe and Mrs. Ingrid Holzhüter, and in Sweden, several parliamentarians from Sweden, Denmark and Norway, addressed the gatherings and declared their solidarity for the demands of the participants, namely support for the Iranian Resistance.

Iran opposition urges G-8 to punish Tehran

AFP, June 21 - The Iraq-based Iranian opposition called on G-8 leaders who meet in Denver, United States, to impose economic and diplomatic sanctions on Iran...

The call was made in a gathering at a military base near Baghdad by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the "Iranian President" whom this movement wants to see in Iran. Addressing 15,000 combatants of the National Liberation Army, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi called for economic and diplomatic sanctions on the Tehran regime. Wife of Massoud Rajavi, she announced that in coming months the movement will step up its activities inside Iran to overthrow the Islamic regime. At the same time, Mr. Rajavi harshly exposed the Tehran regime, saying that it "betrayed the hope of the Iranian people."

In Oberhausen, 20,000 Iranians call for boycott of Tehran mullahs In meeting in Denver urge end to critical dialogue

Oberhausen/Denver, AFP, June 20 - Some 20,000 Iranian exiles called Friday for comprehensive sanctions against Tehran government. In this meeting, the NCR President Massoud Rajavi called on the leaders of industrial states and governments who have a summit in Denver, to isolate Iran economically and diplomatically, and refer its human rights violations to the UN Security Council...

Before the G-8 summit in Denver, Rajavi sent messages to the leaders of the United States, Germany, Canada, Japan, Britain, France, Italy and Russia, urging them to "put the mullahs' leaders on trial in an international tribunal for their crimes against humanity."

Iranian resistance supporters ask for sanctions against Iran

DENVER (AP) - Waving brightly colored flags and cheering noisily, hundreds of Iranian opposition activists urged world leaders to impose economic sanctions on Iran to help bring democracy to the Islamic Republic. During a four-hour rally outside the meeting of the Summit of the Eight, National Council of Resistance of Iran officials also renewed demands for European countries to cut off diplomatic ties to Iran.

"All international bodies, and specifically the Summit of the Eight, must institute economic and political sanctions against the clerical regime so as not to allow the ruling dictatorship to take advantage of its economic ties to suppress the Iranian people and export fundamentalism and terrorism abroad," said Sarvi Chitsaz, the group's U.S. representative.

U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman, Democrat of New York, said world leaders must work toward bringing democracy to Iran. "There is absolutely nothing, nothing, nothing, not one thing which is redeeming about this regime."

The Council of Resistance, which says it wants democracy in Iran, has rejected recent Iranian presidential elections as a sham....

The crowd also heard NCR leaders Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, who spoke in Farsi via a satellite link from a National Liberation Army camp near the Iran-Iraq border.

Demonstrators urge hard line against Tehran

Financial Times, June 21-22 - Yesterday's demonstration had a high-tech flavour of its own in the form of satellite link-ups with similar rallies in Germany and Sweden, as well as the camps in Iraq, where the opposition movement claims to have tens of thousands of soldiers under arms.

The self-described National Liberation Army of Iran is reported to be fiercely loyal to Maryam Rajavi who has been named president in exile by the Paris based dissidents.

The movement supported the 1979 Iranian revolution but broke with its religious leaders soon after they took power. Yesterday's rally commemorated a huge demonstration in Tehran in 1981, on which the regime's forces opened fire.

The National Council of Resistance has friends in the U.S. Congress, including Mr. Gary Ackerman, a leading Democrat who addressed yesterday's protest, but it has always been regarded with some suspicion by the US administration because of its record of anti-Americanism in the 1970's. But in one respect at least, the Iranian opposition movement is considerably more attractive to the US political mainstream than Iran's current masters. It claims that 35 per cent of its Iraq-based fighters and 70 per cent of its officers are women.

Protesters urge assembled leaders to isolate Iran's regime

Los Angeles Times, June 21 - The marchers -- many of whom came from Los Angeles to participate -- carried huge photographs of Maryam Rajavi, the 43-year-old woman their movement hopes will become Ira's president if Tehran's government eventually is ousted....

In a speech broadcast live by satellite from a camp along the Iran-Iraq border -- and punctuated here with drum rolls and clashing cymbals -- Maryam Rajavi urged the marchers to "get the people of Iran's voice out to the world." "No trade! No ties! No arms to Iran! Down with the mullahs! Long live Rajavi!" marchers chanted in response, waving placards of the former metallurgical engineer as she addressed from an enormous mobile television screen. In the crowd was Los Angeles businessman Mansoor Goodarz Lavaie, 54, who spent $3,000 to fly his seven-member family to Denver and lodge them in a hotel for the weekend.

"We came to tell the world we want freedom in Iran and we want it now," Lavaie said. "The eight world leaders gathered in Denver must pay attention to this demonstration. The time for talking with this regime is over."

"Look around; all these people made a sacrifice to come here," added Hamid Azimi, 37, of Los Angeles, who heads the Southern California Society of Iranian Scholars and Professors. "All we ask is that the G-7 not do business with Iran. We'll take care of the rest."

Moderate cleric Mohammed Khatami was the landslide winner of Iran's presidential election last month. But to hear these marchers tell it, the country's mullahs are still in control and Khatami is only posing as a middle-of-the-roader.

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40% rise in number of prisoners, 170% rise in number of arrests

NCR secretariat, June 17 - In a press conference in Tehran, yesterday, Assadollah Lajevardi, the head of the regime's Prisons Organization, acknowledged the existence of 138,000 prisoners in Iran. He added that due to the high number of prisoners, he had even turned libraries, mosques and cultural centers into prisons.

The figure given by Lajevardi shows a 40% rise relative to the figure of 100,000 prisoners he had made public January 1996. The actual number of prisoners is of course much higher.

In his press conference, Lajevardi revealed that in one month alone (March 21 to April 21) more than 58,000 people had been arrested or imprisoned, i.e., 1,930 every day. The figure shows a 170% rise compared to the figure announced by the Interior Minister earlier in the year.

Last March, Interior Minister Ali Mohammad Besharati announced that in three months (December, January and February) some 65,000 were arrested on drug trafficking charges.

The contradictions in figures given by Lajevardi and other officials display the fact that the actual number of prisoners is far greater than 138,000 claimed by Lajevardi. He said in his conference: For testing each prisoner, the Ministry of Health demands 200,000 rials. If we are to have tests for 468,000 prisoners, we need something like 500 billion rials.

Such an admission reveals that the actual number of prisoners in Iran is at least 468,000. And if we take into consideration the figure of 500 billion rials needed for medical tests, the number of prisoners would rise several-fold.

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