Delegates representing the Mojahedin Command inside Iran also attended the seven-hour congress.
Ms. Sepehri, 41, was born in Sanandaj, provincial capital of Iranian Kurdistan. She is a veteran official of the Mojahedin, who also served several years as a member of the General Command of the National Liberation Army of Iran. She served as Senior Secretary of the National Council of Resistance of Iran for a two-year term since 1995.
Congress proceedings began with a 33-gun salute marking the beginning of the thirty-third year of the movement's life. Ms. Shahrzad Sadr, the Mojahedin's outgoing Secretary General who chaired the congress, announced that since last May the organization's branches have been holding a number of conferences in which Mojahedin members and officials participated in preliminary debates and consultations on the election of a new Secretary General.
She then proceeded with the election and after taking the votes of all members and delegates attending the congress in all the different locations, Ms. Sepehri was elected by the congress as the new Secretary General.
Congratulating the new Secretary General, Ms. Sadr said: Mahvash Sepehri's all-round political, military and organizational qualifications, her determination and remarkable abilities as a decision-maker allow her to tap in an unprecedented way the moral and material potentials of Mojahedin members and those of millions of supporters inside and outside Iran and channel them towards the effort to overthrow of the mullahs' regime.
In the conclusion of her two-year term as the Mojahedin's Secretary General, Ms. Sadr has been appointed as chief of staff of the Iranian Resistance's President-elect, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi.
After being sworn in as the new Secretary General, Ms. Sepehri referred to the extraordinary expansion of the organization in the past year, both in quality and quantity, and said: The Khomeini regime should anticipate irreparable political and military blows from the Mojahedin.
She referred to the popular uprisings as well as the Mojahedin's activities and operations in Tehran and other parts of the country including the provinces of Fars, Kerman, Mazandaran, Khorassan, Ilam, Kermanshah, Khuzistan, Sistan and Baluchistan, Isfahan, etc. "Today," Ms. Sepehri said, "the Mojahedin Organization is able to recruit and organize ever more extensive sectors of society, especially women."
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, who was the honorary guest of the congress, described the Mojahedin Organization as a national and historical treasure for the people of Iran. Its achievements, particularly towards the realization of women's equality, have completely undermined the cultural and ideological foundations of the mullahs' regime, Mrs. Rajavi said. As the anti-thesis of fundamentalism, the Mojahedin have succeeded in presenting a tolerant and democratic interpretation of Islam to the Iranian people.
The concluding speech at the congress was delivered by Iranian Resistance Leader Mr. Massoud Rajavi. Marzieh, the grand diva of Persian music, and a number of chairpersons and members of NCR committees attended the Mojahedin's congress as guests.
Office of the People's Mojahedin of Iran - Baghdad
September 1, 1997
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