Madison County JP pushing for change in Iran PDF Print E-mail
Wednesday, 30 November 2005
ImageBY ADAM WALLWORTH

Northwest Arkansas Times - Removing the terrorist label from the National Council of Resistance of Iran remains the best option for bringing democracy to Iran, said Hooshang Nazarali at a forum Tuesday.
Nazarali, a Madison County Justice of the Peace and business owner, is an Iranian American actively working to replace the current government in Iran, which he says is a threat to human rights, not only in that country but around the world.
Last month, Nazarali attended a Congressional briefing about the growing strategic threat from Iran and the need to support Democratic change in that country. The briefing was cosponsored by Rep. John Boozman, R-Ark.
Nazarali contends that the U.S. State Department should remove the National Council of Resistance of Iran from its terrorist watch list so that its military arm, Mujahedeen e-Khalq, also known as MEK, can once again take up arms and drive out the current government, which is responsible for many attacks against American troops in Iraq.
According to a 2004 report by the State Department, the MEK was supported by the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein and supported the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran.
After coalition aircraft bombed MEK bases early in Operation Iraqi Freedom, the group’s leadership ordered members not to resist coalition forces and a formal cease-fire agreement was reached in May 2003, the report states.
Nazarali said the council willingly gave up its weapons to American soldiers to prove that it is not a terrorist organization. As for 1979 incident, he said, the group that took Americans hostage included the recently "selected" Iranian president, Mahmmoud Ahmadinejad.
America does not have to send it troops to free Iran, but until the Iranian regime changes America cannot pull out of Iraq, Nazarali said, because it would allow Iran to take over Iraq. The council is essentially a government in exile, he said, and will hopefully be the next to rule Iran.
Nazarali encourages Americans to learn more about the atrocities the current Iranian government and to contact their congressmen to support allowing the council to drive out Ahmadinejad’s government.
Included in information provided by Nazarali is a letter from five congressmen, including Boozman, that calls for the investigation by the Department of Homeland Security of several Iranians who were sent to the U.S. by the Ministry of Intelligence and Security of Iran, "to engage in [a] disinformation campaign and intelligence gathering that could later lead to intimidation and even elimination of Iranian dissidents residing in the United States."