Each one can be a ‘center of rebellion’

Hail to the centers of rebellion; our hearts beats with theirs, and they are at the forefront of the nationwide uprisings.

I came out of Iran three years ago, and there are some here who exited the country in the past few months.

After 30 years of vilification in history books at schools and propaganda on city walls and public places, and after 39 years of spreading lies against the most powerful opposition against the mullahs, we are still here, more than ever before, and today we have gathered here to tell the tyrant Khamenei: Look where we’ve gotten. Yes, you have failed to separate the MEK from their beloved compatriots.

We have made a pledge that we will fight until the end and until we regain our homeland Iran, an Iran without the dictatorships of the monarchy or the theocracy.

We will fight to ensure that the Iranian people have a free choice, and today this fate is in the hands of each and every one of us.

We are proud to have Maryam Rajavi as a woman leading this alternative. She has been the mullahs’ nightmare for all these years.

Each one of us can be a center of rebellion, a rebel seeking to overthrow the regime.

• Pariya Kohandel, whose father has been imprisoned by the Iranian regime for his affiliation with the Mujahedin-e Khalq, left Iran three years ago to join the opposition movement. She was 11 years old when security forces arrested her father.