Succeeded by Fahimeh Arvani Preceded by None Role Iranian Politician | Leader Massoud Rajavi Name Maryam Rajavi Preceded by Massoud Rajavi Religion Islam | |
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Political party People's Mujahedin of Iran Children Mostafa Rajavi, Ashraf Abrishamchi Siblings Narges Ghajar Azodanloo, Mahmoud Ghajar Azodanloo Similar People Massoud Rajavi, Ashraf Pahlavi, Abolhassan Banisadr, Saddam Hussein, Ali Khamenei Profiles | ||
Regime change in iran maryam rajavi paris 13 june 2015
Maryam Rajavi (born Maryam Qajar Azodanlu, مریم قجر عضدانلو, on 4 December 1953) is the leader of the People's Mujahedin of Iran, an organization trying to overthrow the Iranian government. Rajavi is also the President-elect of National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) since 1993. She is the wife of Massoud Rajavi.
Contents
- Regime change in iran maryam rajavi paris 13 june 2015
- Speech of maryam rajavi in grand gathering of the iranian resistance paris 13 june 2015
- Early life and education
- Political career
- France
- Iraq
- References
Speech of maryam rajavi in grand gathering of the iranian resistance paris 13 june 2015
Early life and education
Rajavi was born on 4 December in Tehran. She was raised there as the daughter of a middle-class civil servant descended from a member of the Qajar dynasty. She attended the Sharif University of Technology in Iran, earning a B.S. in metallurgy.
Political career
Rajavi has stated that her political activism started when she was twenty-two after her sister Narges's killing by Shah Muhammad Reza's secret police. Then she became a member of the People's Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI/MEK), and began her political career.
Rajavi served as an organizer of the anti-Shah student movement in the 1970s and in 1979, became an official of the social section of the PMOI/MEK, where she served until 1981. During that time, Rajavi was a parliamentary candidate in 1980. In 1985, she became Joint-Leader of the PMOI and served in that capacity until 1989 when she became the Secretary General until 1993.
In 1982, Rajavi was transferred to Paris, where the political headquarters of the Mojahedin was located, the principal opposition movement at that time.
In 2003, Rajavi's offices were raided by French police. She was placed under arrest and the assets of the NCRI were frozen by the French government. Rajavi's supporters protested her arrest by demonstration until her release."
The Supreme Court of the UK reiterated Rajavi's travel ban (originally put in place in 1997) on 12 November 2014. Rajavi is not excluded from any other European country and engages regularly with parliamentarians in the European Parliament.
In a statement that condemned the ISIS attacks against Iran's parliament and the tomb of the Islamic Republic's founder, Rajavi reminded that, "ISIS's conduct clearly benefits the Iranian regime's Supreme Leader Khamenei, who wholeheartedly welcomes it as an opportunity to overcome his regime's regional and international impasse and isolation. The founder and the number one state sponsor of terror is thus trying to switch the place of murderer and the victim and portray the central banker of terrorism as a victim."
France
In 2003, she was arrested by Paris Police Prefecture alongside some 150 MEK members for "preparing to commit or finance acts of terrorism". Twenty-four sympathizers of the MEK were placed under investigation, including Maryam Rajavi for allegedly "associating with wrongdoers in relation with a terrorist undertaking". The investigation lost momentum and many of the restrictions on the suspects' movement were lifted in 2006 leaving nine people to be investigated for possible money laundering. In 2014, all of the charges were dropped.
Iraq
In July 2010, the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal issued an arrest warrant for 39 MEK members, including Rajavi, for crimes against humanity committed while suppressing the 1991 uprisings in Iraq.