Iran: 100,000 gather to call for urgent end to ‘religious dictatorship’

THE crowd that gathered at Le Bourget, Paris, for the annual gathering of Iranian communities could have filled Murrayfield – twice over at an estimate of more than 100,000.

The message from the Free Iran gathering to the regime in their home country was simple – they want change and they want it sooner rather than later. This was the highlight of the year for the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the country’s opposition in exile.

The crowd and the speakers were an eclectic mix, from the former Iranian diplomat-turned-mole who greeted me on the bus to the event, to students, parents and grandparents, politicians from across the world, from Canada, the US, Europe and the Arab nations, including a member of the Saudi royal family, appearing on the same stage as military chiefs.

With any event of this size an element of stage management is virtually inevitable, but it was the unbridled enthusiasm of the audience for more than six hours that set this apart from the standard political conference.

Then, when Ingrid Betancourt, a Colombian-French former politician who spent six years in captivity – held in the jungle by Farc, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – introduced the story of a young girl’s weekly visits to see her father in prison, the emotion in the hall was palpable. 

http://bit.ly/29Mv95k

http://bit.ly/29KrdW2

http://bit.ly/29F4loF

http://bit.ly/29GCoNX

http://bit.ly/29MHBFe

http://bit.ly/29GCoNX

http://huff.to/29Pb3KO