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We begin tonight’s edition of A Window to the Fatherland with Dr. Alireza Nourizadeh reading one of his poems from the book of his collected works.
Dr. Alireza Nourizadeh:
We continue the program with reporting on the Conference of the Coalition of Iranian Opposition Groups (CIOG) in Washington D.C., which was held on Saturday at the George Washington University to discuss the current situation in Iran and how to form an alternative system of governance to replace the Islamic republic regime.
I do not believe any other such conference would had attracted so much attention as the comments made under its video clip on social media by the animosity to it that the servants of Rajavi’s widow, the right wing monarchists and the agents of the Islamic republic regime have shown!!
During this Conference opposition figures such as Dr. Abdian, Dr. Shahriar Ahee, Dr, Hossein Bor and Mr Abdullah Mohtadi delivered speeches but Dr. Abdian’s points of view were criticised by some people and he became agitated and this resulted in some of the participants feel that they had been offended by his position on the question of Iran’s national interests and the unity of our fatherland.
As such, I had to step in and explain that regardless of any comments made during this Conference, we believe in a united country of Iran and will not allow it to be partitioned.
The significance of the Conference was however that the retired US General Richard Secord who had served in Iran before the revolution said in his speech that he supported the Iranian people’s struggle and that their regime is squandering the people’s wealth and money to sustain Assad’s regime in Syria.
Abdullah Mohtadi of the Komola Party of Kurdistan of Iran also spoke about how his party seeks a secular democratic Iran where all its ethnic peoples live in peace and harmony along side each other.
In his speech to the Conference, political activist Shariar Ahee touched on the issue of the need for creation of a coalition of dissident groups to get prepared for the post-Islamic republic Iran where pluralism rules.
In the second part of the program we will look at the arrest of Iran’s leading human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh.
Nasrin Sotoudeh, 55, has been a well-known defender of Iranian dissidents, including some of the young women arrested recently by the regime for refusing to wear the mandatory hijab in public.
No official charges were announced but the arrest came shortly after Ms Sotoudeh spoke out against efforts by Iran’s judiciary to force its own candidates onto the board of Iranian Bar Association.
Ms Sotoudeh was previously arrested in 2010 and accused of spreading propaganda and endangering national security. Western governments protested her detention and she went on several hunger strikes in prison.
She was eventually released in 2013; shortly before Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s president, was due to speak at the UN.
At the end of the program we will review the latest news about the historic meeting between Trump and Kim as the US President has successfully defused a major international crisis with North Korea, before he tackles the “Iran problem”.
Stay with us for this edition of A Window to the Fatherland and share it with your family and friends.
