BIOGRAPHY
OF MARYAM RAJAVI
Date of
Birth: December 4, 1953Place of Birth: Tehran, IranMarital Status: Married to Massoud
Rajavi, 1985Current Position: President-elect,
National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)Education: Metallurgical Engineer, Sharif University of
Technology, TehranChildren: a daughter Ashraf, and a son Mostafa
Political Activities:
• Official in the student movement affiliated with the People’s
Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), (Mujahedin-e Khalq, MEK) against the
Shah’s regime (1973 to 1979)
• Official in the social department of the MEK (1979 to 1981)
• Candidate for Parliament (1980)
• Joint-leader of the MEK (1985 to 1989)
• Secretary General of the MEK (1989 to 1993)
• President-elect of the parliament-in-exile National Council of
Resistance of Iran (1993-present)
Early Days
Maryam Rajavi was born into a middle-class family in Tehran. One
of her brothers, Mahmoud, is a veteran member of the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK),
and was a political prisoner during the Shah’s regime.
Her older sister Narges was killed by the Shah’s secret police,
SAVAK, in 1975. Her other sister, Massoumeh, an industrial engineering student,
was arrested by the clerical regime in 1982. Pregnant at the time, she was
ultimately hanged after undergoing brutal torture.
Rajavi joined the MEK as a young woman. Following the 1979
anti-monarchical revolution, she ran for a seat in Parliament from Tehran
during the first parliamentary election in 1980. But, due to widespread voter
fraud by the new fundamentalist regime, none of the opposition candidates made
it into Parliament. Despite the fraud, Rajavi received over 250,000 votes.
President-elect of the NCRI
In 1993, during its plenary session, the National Council of
Resistance of Iran, a coalition whose members include a number of Iranian
opposition organizations and prominent personalities, elected Mrs. Rajavi as
the President-elect for the period of transitioning power to the Iranian
people.
The NCRI acts as a parliament-in-exile and a legislative
assembly.
As the President-elect of the NCRI, Maryam Rajavi has mounted an
extraordinary political, social, cultural and ideological challenge to the
ruling mullahs in Iran. Under her leadership, women have risen to hold key
positions in the Iranian Resistance. Over half of NCRI members are women. They
occupy various political, diplomatic, social and cultural positions in the
Resistance.
Mrs. Rajavi has made numerous speeches regarding the real
message of Islam, which revolves around tolerance and democracy, in direct
contradiction of the reactionary and fundamentalist interpretation of Islam.
She believes that one of the most important differentiators between these two
entirely contradictory views of Islam focuses on attitudes toward the status of
women. Among her published works are: “Islam, Women, and Equality,” “Women, the
Force for Change,” and “Women against Fundamentalism.”
Against Fundamentalism
In 1994, during a speech delivered at the Oslo city hall, Mrs.
Rajavi warned about the octopus of religious tyranny and Islamic fundamentalism
whose heart beats in Tehran. She said: “Fundamentalism has turned into the
greatest threat to peace in the region and the world,” adding, “The mullahs
ruling Iran are pursuing their expansionist agenda and exporting crises and
tensions by exploiting the religious beliefs of over a billion Muslims.”
During a June 21, 1996 speech entitled, “Women, the Voice of the
Oppressed,” delivered at a conference in London’s Earls Court, Rajavi said,
“The issue of women and the equality movement is linked to the struggle against
reactionary ideology and fundamentalism. For women are not only pioneers in the
equality movement, but also the main force for progress, peace and social
justice. In my view, humankind can only rid itself of the evil phenomenon of
reactionary outlook and fundamentalism if women would assume their leading role
in this global campaign and employ all forms of democratic struggle to shut the
door on any form of appeasement and compromise with the misogynous and inhumane
mullahs in Iran.”
The Third Option
In December 2004, during a speech at the European Parliament,
Maryam Rajavi proposed the Third Option, a clear prospect to resolve the
Iranian crisis, which had caused anxiety on a global scale.
She said: “In response to the Iranian crisis, two options are
regularly proposed: Either compromise with the mullahs’ regime, in a bid to
contain or gradually change the regime. Western countries have pursued this
policy in the past two decades. Or, the second option, overthrowing the mullahs
by way of a foreign war, similar to what occurred in Iraq. No one is interested
a repeat of the Iraqi experience in Iran. But, I have come here today to say
that there is a third option: Change by the Iranian people and the Iranian
Resistance. With the removal of foreign obstacles, the Iranian people and
Resistance would have the ability and the readiness to bring about such change.
This presents the only way to avert a foreign war. Offering concessions to the
mullahs is not the alternative to a foreign conflict and will not dissuade them
from pursuing their ominous intentions.”
International Solidarity with the Iranian Resistance
Today, in the eyes of the Iranian people, Maryam Rajavi is the
pioneer of the struggle for democratic change in Iran. In recent years, she has
led a global movement comprised of some of the most celebrated political and
social personalities, including former U.S. government officials and
secretaries in the political and military arenas, as well as political
personalities and parliamentarians from the U.S., Canada, Europe, and
Australia. This international movement has attained significant victories in
support of regime change and establishment of freedom and democracy in Iran
through its support and recognition of the Iranian Resistance and the organized
opposition in Camps Ashraf and Liberty. The movement has gained international
credibility and legitimacy.
International Campaign to Delist the MEK
Another front in the struggle led by Maryam Rajavi was a major
campaign to remove the MEK from terrorist lists in Europe and the U.S. while
exposing secret deals in the context of appeasing the clerical regime. These
efforts led to the delisting of the MEK in the United Kingdom in 2008 and the
European Union in 2009, as well as the dismissal of terrorism charges in the
June 17, 2003 dossier by a senior French Investigative magistrate in May 2011
and the revocation of the MEK’s terrorist designation in the United States in
September 2012.
International Campaign in Defense of Resistance Members in
Ashraf and Liberty
In 2009, the U.S. government transferred the protection and
security of over 3,000 Resistance members in Camp Ashraf to the Iraqi
government. On the orders of the Iranian regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei,
then-Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki attacked Camp Ashraf in July 2009,
April 2011, and again in September 2013, killing over 100 residents and
injuring more than 1,000 in the process. Subsequent to these attacks, the
residents of Ashraf were transferred to Camp Liberty under the auspices of the
United Nations. They were attacked several more times by missiles and rockets,
as a result of which dozens were killed and many more were wounded. The
objective of the clerical regime and its puppet government in Iraq through
these attacks was to completely eradicate the Iranian Resistance.
Mrs. Rajavi led an international campaign in support of Iranian
Resistance members in Ashraf and Liberty, which included hundreds of statements
issued by human rights organizations, numerous reports and statements by
UN-affiliated organizations, and statements by thousands of parliamentarians
around the world, in addition to multiple resolutions passed in parliaments and
international institutions. Efforts in the U.S. led to the adoption of a 2016
resolution in Congress calling for the provision of security for the residents
of Camp Liberty.
http://www.maryam-rajavi.com/en/about/biography
