This time the West ought to back Iranians who seek regime change

https://themediaexpress.com/2017/06/20/this-time-the-west-ought-to-back-iranians-who-seek-regime-change/

As the international community watched to see who would be pulled out of the ballot box in Iran’s Presidential election last month, many Iranians refused to participate in the process, seeing no real prospect for change in their country and not wanting to encourage the perception of legitimacy for the existing government.

Despite state media propaganda of a high turnout (which the regime has claimed at each of its sham polls), this time the online social sphere was full of images of empty voting stations and posters on walls calling for a boycott. The organized boycott was led by the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (#PMOI or MEK), the principle opposition group to the Ayatollahs’ regime.

The country’s leading opposition group has continued to attract support throughout the past three decades, even after regime authorities attempted to destroy the group in the midst of a massacre of political prisoners, which killed 30,000 in the summer of 1988. It has also continued to accumulate supporters and organize activist demonstrations in the four years since Rouhani took office on promises of greater civil rights and less restrictions on cultural activities and free expression.

The undiminished appeal of the #PMOI is indicative of how little has changed in the wake of Rouhani’s election. As a matter of fact, some conditions inside the country have only grown worse, with the Rouhani administration overseeing approximately 3,000 executions and an enhanced crackdown on activists, journalists, dual nationals, and many other sectors. The administration’s true feelings about human rights issues were made clear the moment Rouhani chose Mostafa Pourmohammadi as his Justice Minister: a man who had served as one of the four judges on the “death commission” that determined whom to hang in 1988.