National Council of Resistance of Iran

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI; Persian: شورای ملی مقاومت ایران‎, romanized: Šurā-ye melli-e moqāwemat-e Īrān) is an Iranian left-wing political organization based in France and Albania. The organization is a political coalition calling to replace the Iranian regime. The coalition is made up of different Iranian dissident groups, with its main member being the People’s Mujahedin of Iran.[4][5][6] Both organizations are considered to be led by Massoud Rajavi and his wife Maryam Rajavi.[7]

Not to be confused with National Resistance Movement of Iran or National Council of Iran.
National Council of Resistance of Iran

شورای ملی مقاومت ایران  (Persian)
Conseil national de la résistance iranienne  (French)
Këshilli Kombëtar i Rezistencës së Iranit  (Albanian)
AbbreviationNCRI
SpokespersonAlireza Jafarzadeh[2]
President-electMaryam Rajavi
FounderMassoud Rajavi and Abolhassan Banisadr[3]
FoundedJuly 20, 1981 (1981-07-20)
HeadquartersParis, France[3]
Tirana, Albania
Mother PartyPeople's Mojahedin Organization of Iran
Party flag
Website
ncr-iran.org

The NCRI is also recognized as the MEK’s diplomatic wing opposing the religious Iranian government.[8][9][10] In 2002, the NCRI exposed that “Tehran had built nuclear-related facilities.”[11] It was listed as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997, and was removed from this list in 2012 by the US government.[9][12] The NCRI is considered the largest political opposition to the current Iranian regime.[13][14]

History

President Abolhassan Banisadr was supportive of the MEK and believed the clerics should not govern Iran directly, and was removed from power. Both Massoud Rajavi and Banisdar escaped Iran in 1981 during a campaign by the Iranian regime to eradicate the MEK from Iran.[15]

The NCRI was founded by Massoud Rajavi and Abolhassan Banisadr in 1981.[2] Both co-signed a covenant outlining Banisadr “as the Republic’s president”, and of Rajavi “as the chairman both of the National Council and of the republic’s Provisional Government.” The covenant criticised the Iranian regime as “medieval”, “reactionary”, and “dictatorial”, while proposing “a democratic, patriotic, and law-abiding government”. By 1983, the NCRI included the People’s Mojahedin of Iran, Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI), National Democratic Front (NDF), the National Democratic Front, the Hoviyat Group, the Union of Iranian Communists, the Workers’ Party, the Union for Workers’ Liberation, the United Left Council for Democracy and Independence, and the Labour Party of Iran.[16]

The Foundation of the NCRI allowed Massoud Rajavi to "assume the position of chairman of the resistance to the Islamic Republic and provided an outlet for the Mojahedin to codify its ideological models for a future government to replace that of the mullahs."[17]

In January 1983, Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and NCRI President Massoud Rajavi signed a peace plan "based on an agreement of mutual recognition of borders as defined by the 1975 Algiers Agreement." According to James Piazza, this peace initiative became the NCRI´s first diplomatic act as a "true government in exile.[18] In 1983, elements united with NCRI began to depart the alliance because of conflicts with the MEK.[19] On 24 March 1983, Banisadr officially left the council.[1][20]

In 1986, the French government closed down NCRI headquarters in Paris to improve relations with the Islamic Republic.[21]

In the Iran–Iraq War the MEK/NCRI formed an alliance with Saddam Hussein, who was largely responsible for its financing, together with Saudi Arabia at that time, though the NCRI also employed fraud to bolster its funding.[22]

In 1993, assassins killed NCRI representative Mohammad Hossein Naqdi in Italy. As a result, the European Parliament issued a condemnation of political murder against the Islamic Republic of Iran.[23][24][25]

In 2002 the NCRI exposed nuclear facilities in Natanz and Arak in Iran. Iran was then declared “in breach of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons”, which began to limit the nuclear program in Iran.[26]

Christopher Harmon claims that the there are a number of organisations set up by the NCRI, including Organization of Iranian American Communities, the Association of Iranian Scholars and Professionals, Association of Iranian Women, California Society for Democracy, Muslim Student Association, National Association of Iranian Academics in Britain, Towhidi Society of Guilds, Movement of Muslim Teachers, and others.[27]

MEK leader Maryam Rajavi is the designated "president-elect" of the organization, i.e. President of Iran for the transitional period.[2] The NCRI has in the past three decades recorded and reported human rights violations in Iran to UN Special Rapporteurs, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Amnesty International and other international human rights organisations.[28]

Platform's core concepts

The platform's core concepts (to date) include:

  • 1) Elections based on the principle of universal suffrage;
  • 2) a pluralistic political system with free assembly, freedom of expression and respect for individual freedoms;
  • 3) the abolition of the death penalty;
  • 4) a separation of mosque and state, and prohibitions against religious discrimination;
  • 5) full gender equality for Iranian women;
  • 6) a modernization of the Iranian justice system, the elimination of sharia law, and reforms that provide for an array of modern legal protections;
  • 7) adherence to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international instruments that enshrine protections for the population, and a commitment to the equality of all nationalities (in particular autonomy for Iranian Kurdistan);
  • 8) safeguards for private property, investment and employment, and support for a market economy;
  • 9) a foreign policy based on the principle of “peaceful coexistence” with other countries;
  • 10) a rejection of nuclear development and possession of weapons of mass destruction as a whole.[29][30] In June 2020, a majority of members of the House of Representatives backed a “bipartisan resolution” supporting Maryam Rajavi and the NCRI’s “call for a secular, democratic Iran” while “condemning Iranian state-sponsored terrorism”. The resolution, backed by 221 lawmakers (including Louie Gohmert and Sheila Jackson Lee), gave support to the Rajavi’s 10-point plan for Iran’s future (which include “a universal right to vote, market economy, and a non-nuclear Iran”) while calling on the prevention of “malign activities of the Iranian regime’s diplomatic missions.” A NCRI representative said that “The fact that out of ten diplomats or agents of the Iranian regime expelled or jailed in Europe and the U.S. for terror plots over the past two years, eight of them were tied to operations against our movement, is a vivid testimony that the NCRI is the alternative to this regime.” The resolution also called on the U.S. to stand “with the people of Iran who are continuing to hold legitimate and peaceful protests” against the Iranian regime.[31][32]

Global reception

The NCRI received support from US Congress and US officials including Tom Ridge, Howard Dean, Michael Mukasey, Louis Freeh, Hugh Shelton, Rudy Giuliani, John Bolton, Bill Richardson, James L. Jones, Edward G. Rendell, Bian Binley, and Lt. General Thomas Mclenerney.[33][34][35]

The NCRI, along with the MEK is regarded by the governments of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Republic of Iraq as a terrorist organization, and was classified as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation by the United States, alleging that the NCRI "is not a separate organization, but is instead, and has been, an integral part of the MEK at all relevant times" and that the NCRI is "the political branch" of the MEK.[36] However, it is no longer considered terrorist. On September 28, 2012, the US State Department formally removed MEK from its list of terrorist organizations in a decision made by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, ahead of an October 1 deadline set by a US appeals court.[12]

Dick Armey (the former House majority leader 1995–2003) suggested that the State Department wrongly included MEK in the terrorist list from the beginning.[37] Alireza Jafarzadeh was its official representative in the US until the Washington office was closed by the US State Department in 2002 on the grounds that it was only a front group for the MEK by then listed as a terrorist organisation in the US.[38] It has been alleged that the inclusion of NCRI and MEK in the list was a token offered to the theocratic regime of Iran rather than based on the facts of the matter. According to the Wall Street Journal[39] "Senior diplomats in the Clinton administration say the MEK figured prominently as a bargaining chip in a bridge-building effort with Tehran." The Journal added that: In 1997, the State Department added the MEK to a list of global terrorist organizations as "a signal" of the US's desire for rapprochement with Tehran's reformists, said Martin Indyk, who at the time was assistant secretary of state for Near East Affairs. President Khatami's government "considered it a pretty big deal," Indyk said.

The European Union in May 2004 implied that NCRI is part of the People's Mujahedin of Iran and excluded the NCRI itself from a list of organisations considered to be terrorist organisations, including the People's Mujahedin of Iran "minus the National Council of Resistance of Iran" on its list of terrorist organisations.[40] On January 26, 2009, EU Council of Ministers agreed to remove the MEK from the EU terror list. The group said it was the outcome of a "seven-year-long legal and political battle".[41][42][43][44][45] The European Union had previously listed the MEK on its list but excluded the NCRI itself from the list of organizations considered to be terrorist organizations.[46] According to some sources, it has an active global network, and engages in propaganda and lobbying in many Western capitals.[47][48]

The Middle East department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in the United Kingdom stated in early 2006 that it is widely understood that "Iran's [nuclear] program, which was kept secret from the IAEA for 18 years, became public knowledge largely because of revelations of the NCRI, and this led to heightened international concern."[49] At the same time Michael Axworthy, former head of the Iran section at the FCO, claimed that the NCRI is a "tightly disciplined front organization for the MEK" and deemed them unreliable.[50]

In a meeting at the Council of Europe in April 2006, Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the NCRI, elaborated on the movement's vision for a future Iran and presented a Ten Point Plan for Future Iran, according to the organisation's website.[51][28] The plan has been supported by British MPs,[28] some arguing that it is a potential programme that "would transform Iran" since it calls for the abolition of the death penalty, the creation of a modern legal system and the independence of judges.[28] At a debate on the human rights situation in Iran in the House of Lords on December 8, 2016, Lord Alton of Liverpool said, "The manifesto says: Cruel and degrading punishments will have no place in the future Iran. Madam Rajavi would end Tehran's funding of Hamas, Hezbollah and other militant groups and is committed to peaceful coexistence, relations with all countries and respect for the United Nations charter."[52]

According to a RAND report, the NCRI was transformed from an umbrella organization into a MEK subsidiary.[2] The NCRI says it fights for the establishment of a democratic and secular republic in Iran, on a platform espousing such political values as secular government, democratic elections, freedom of expression, equal rights for women and human rights.[2][19] Also according to the RAND report, the NCRI has hidden the Marxist-Islamic elements,[53] and practices gender segregation.[54]

References
  1. Anne Singleton (2003), Saddam's Private Army: How Rajavi changed Iran's Mojahedin from armed revolutionaries to an armed cult, Iran Chamber, retrieved 14 December 2016
  2. Goulka, Jeremiah; Hansell, Lydia; Wilke, Elizabeth; Larson, Judith (2009). "The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq: a policy conundrum" (PDF). RAND Corporation. ISBN 978-0-8330-4701-4. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-02-22. Retrieved 2016-12-22.CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  3. Yarshater, Ehsan (ed.). "Chronology of Iranian History Part 4". Encyclopædia Iranica. Bibliotheca Persica Press. Retrieved August 1, 2016.
  4. Exiled Iranian opposition group in Paris for talks
  5. Senior US Senators Meet Iran Opposition Leader In Albania
  6. Iranian dissidents plot a revolution from Albania
  7. Nicla Pedde p.118:'Despite this multiform structure, however, the pyramid of power behind the MEK (or MKO Mojahedin e-Khalg Organization) is quite small and precisely identified: Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. The truth however is that MEK has been transformed in a sort of closed and vertical structure totally dominated by Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, where Massoud still holds the real power on the entire structure.
  8. The Mojahedin-e Khalq versus the Islamic Republic of Iran: from war to propaganda and the war on propaganda and diplomacy
  9. Kenneth Katzman, Document No.9 Iran:U.S. Concerns and Policy: Responses, CRS Report RL32048, in Kristen Boon, Aziz Z. Huq, Douglas Lovelace (eds.) Global Stability and U.S. National Security, Oxford University Press, 2012 pp.297-383 p.317.
  10. Sasan Fayazmanesh, The United States and Iran: Sanctions, Wars and the Policy of Dual Containment, Routledge, 2008 pp.79,81.
  11. Smart Security Council? Analyzing the effectiveness of targeted sanctions
  12. Shane, Scott (September 21, 2012). "Iranian Dissidents Convince U.S. to Drop Terror Label". New York Times.
  13. Fox News https://www.foxnews.com/world/iranian-opposition-upbeat-as-trump-administration-talks-of-regime-change. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  14. Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/23/trump-attorney-rudolph-giuliani-us-iran-regime-change. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  15. Katzman, Kenneth (2001). "Iran: The People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran". In Benliot, Albert V. (ed.). Iran: Outlaw, Outcast, Or Normal Country?. Nova. p. 101. ISBN 978-1-56072-954-9.
  16. Keddie, Modern Iran, (2006), p.253
  17. Piazza, James A. (October 1994). "The Democratic Islamic Republic of Iran in Exile". Digest of Middle East Studies. 3 (4): 13. doi:10.1111/j.1949-3606.1994.tb00535.x.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
  18. Piazza, James A. (October 1994). "The Democratic Islamic Republic of Iran in Exile". Digest of Middle East Studies. 3 (4): 9–43. doi:10.1111/j.1949-3606.1994.tb00535.x.
  19. Mark Edmond Clark (2016), "An Analysis of the Role of the Iranian Diaspora in the Financial Support System of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq", in David Gold (ed.), Terrornomics, Routledge, p. 70, ISBN 1317045904
  20. Ervand Abrahamian (1989), Radical Islam: the Iranian Mojahedin, Society and culture in the modern Middle East, 3, I.B.Tauris, pp. 243–246, ISBN 9781850430773
  21. Ervand Abrahamian (1989), Radical Islam: the Iranian Mojahedin, Society and culture in the modern Middle East, 3, I.B.Tauris, p. 258, ISBN 9781850430773
  22. Jeremiah Goulka, Lydia Hansell, Elizabeth Wilke, Judith Larson, Rand Corporation 2009 p.59.
  23. Cohen, Ronen (August 2018). "The Mojahedin-e Khalq versus the Islamic Republic of Iran: from war to propaganda and the war on propaganda and diplomacy". Middle Eastern Studies. 54 (6).
  24. Chicago Tribune wires, ‘Iraq Denies Link with Death of Opposition Leader in Rome’, Chicago Tribune (17 March 1993), p.4.
  25. Safa Haeri, ‘A bad month’, Middle East International, No. 463 (19 November 1993), p.11.
  26. New York Times https://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/08/international/chronology-of-irans-nuclear-program.html?mtrref=www.google.com. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  27. Christopher C. Harmon, Randall G. Bowdish (2018), The Terrorist Argument: Modern Advocacy and Propaganda, Brookings Institution Press, p. 301, ISBN 9780815732198CS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  28. UK House of Commons, Foreign Affairs Committee publication, 10 June 2013,
  29. Ilan Berman, "Making Sense of The MeK", National Interest
  30. United States. Congress, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Non proliferation, and TradeCS1 maint: uses authors parameter (link)
  31. "Majority of House members back resolution supporting Iranian opposition, condemning regime's terror".
  32. "'The world is watching': Lawmakers tout bipartisan resolution condemning Iran".
  33. Tomblay, Darren (2001). Political Influence Operations: How Foreign Actors Seek to Shape U.S. Policy Making. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 978-1538103319.
  34. News Week https://www.newsweek.com/iran-protests-who-are-opposition-and-who-will-rule-if-regime-falls-772045. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  35. Guskin, Justin (2007). The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 90. ISBN 978-1583671559.
  36. "DC Court of Appeals Rules Against NCRI Petition for Review of "Foreign Terrorist Organization" Designation" (pdf). United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia. July 9, 2004. Retrieved 2006-12-28.
  37. "Empowering the democratic opposition in Iran". The Hill. July 24, 2007. Retrieved 2012-12-04.
  38. Lorimer, Doug (February 22, 2006). "IRAN: US relies on terrorists for nuke 'intelligence'". Green Left Weekly. Archived from the original on March 8, 2006. Retrieved 2006-05-01.
  39. Andrew Higgins and Jay Solomon (2006-11-29), "Iranian Imbroglio Gives New Boost To Odd Exile Group", Wall Street Journal
  40. "Council Common Position 2004/500/CESP of 17 May 2004" (pdf). Council of the European Union. May 17, 2004. Retrieved 2006-12-28.
  41. Hafner, Katie (January 26, 2009). "The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia". International Herald Tribune. Reuters. Retrieved 2012-12-04.
  42. Runner, Philippa (2012-11-20). "/ Foreign Affairs / EU ministers drop Iran group from terror list". Euobserver.com. Retrieved 2012-12-04.
  43. "EU removes PMOI from terrorist list". UPI.com. 2009-01-26. Retrieved 2012-12-04.
  44. John, Mark (January 26, 2009). "EU takes Iran opposition group off terror list". Reuters.
  45. "Council Common Position 2004/500/CESP of 17 May 2004" (PDF). Council of the European Union. May 17, 2004. Retrieved 2006-12-28.
  46. "COUNCIL DECISION" (PDF). Official Journal of the European Union. 28 June 2007. Retrieved 8 November 2013.
  47. Anthony H. Cordesman, Adam C. Seitz Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Birth of a Regional Nuclear Arms Race?. Praeger Security International Series ABC-CLIO, 2009 p.327.
  48. Jeremiah Goulka, Lydia Hansell, Elizabeth Wilke, Judith Larson, The Mujahedin-e Khalq in Iraq A Policy Conundrum, Rand Corporation 2009
  49. "RESISTANCE GROUP CLAIMS EVIDENCE OF IRANIAN BOMB AMBITIONS". The Media Line. Archived from the original on 5 October 2006. Retrieved 8 November 2013.
  50. Kliger, Rachelle (January 11, 2006). "Resistance group claims evidence of Iranian bomb ambitions". The Media Line. Archived from the original on January 19, 2010. Retrieved 2006-12-28.
  51. NCRI Website: Maryam Rajavi's Ten Point Plan for Future Iran, http://ncr-iran.org/en/ten-point-plan
  52. House of Lords Hansard Volume 777, Lords Chamber, Iran: Human Rights, 08 December 2016, https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2016-12-08/debates/1117FCF0-EE8C-4A7A-BED2-DE9108AD65DC/IranHumanRights
  53. Jeremiah Goulka, Lydia Hansell, Elizabeth Wilke, Judith Larson, The Mujahedin-e Khalqin Iraq: A Policy Conundrum, Rand Corporation 2009 p.59:'In another survival shift for Rajavi, the NCRI hid the MeK's Marxist-Islamic philosophy from European and American view and instead promoted a new platform espousing such political values as secular government, democratic elections, freedom of expression, equal rights for women, human rights, and a free-market economy, only some of which the MeK had previously endorsed.'
  54. Rand Corporation 2009 p.72
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