The phone.
And I'm Frederica.
Thank you for doing this with us.
How are you doing?
Wow, thank you.
So we have, as you can
maybe see the other guest here,
is our engineers and they're gonna
just make sure everything
looks and sounds good before we
officially start.
While we're doing that, I will
let you know that this
conversation will be a little
bit different from your
conversation with Stephen in that
it's a little shorter and the
questions are
um a little more straightforward
and um
and kind of lets you guide the
conversation wherever you want to go
but um this is just kind of
like a short update so
uh just so you
understand kind of um what
you'll expect to see in the segment.
Before you start, as I
told you, I don't know if I talked
to you on the phone, right?
So this Saturday
is going to be a big demonstration
in Paris in support of
Maryam Rajabi's 10-point plan with
our opposition.
It's more than 100,000 people are
expected to join us.
So I'm going there on Thursday.
I'm flying there Thursday to
attend that.
A lot of people from our community,
a few of them are from Chicago.
A lot because I'm also going so.
Just wanted to let you know if you
wanted to cover any of that.
That should be quite an event.
Yeah, it's huge.
Yeah, I can actually send some
pictures and videos after
I come back or even
during that time because I'm going
to stay there for, I'll
come back the Wednesday after
because there are a lot
of meetings that's going to
happen between, you know,
the leaders of opposition and the
people just
to tell them what the status is.
How long has this been planned?
Um this was
planned this is a
yearly event this is the
memorandum of the political
prisons that were executed
in 1987 30
more than 32 000 people
political prisons were executed in
jail in iran and
every year this is happening um
it's been going on every year so
this is yearly
event.
Okay, it just so
happens to kind of coincide with
this latest.
Yeah, it happened
in 20th, around 20th
June of
this year
of, you know, in 1987,
so every year, right around that
time. They wanted to make it a
Saturday kind of, so it's a day
before or after or something around
that.
In 2018,
that event was in
Bill Pant in Paris.
And that's where the Iranian regime
tried to bomb that.
I mean, that was big news, to bomb
the event. And it was an indoor
event. More than 100,000 people were
also there.
There were 600 dignitaries
from United States,
from Secretary of State,
not Mr.
Pompeo, but Rudy Giuliani
and a lot of senators and
congressmen were there as well.
So it was, it's an international
event basically.
All the supporters of Iranian
resistance are there.
So since then we haven't
had indoor like
that because of the fear of
that kind of event.
It's been outdoor and mostly been
you know in the street rallies
in the streets.
Amazing.
Really quick, I'm going to ask
Andrew and Andy, are you guys
ready?
Okay, I'm gonna
Okay
Well, thank you for that information
about the Parisian
giant event.
That's super interesting.
And as Marissa said, particularly
right now.
Yes.
But so I wanted to
ask you about your
take, your opinion of this
MOU that's been
signed between the
US and Iran.
Well, we don't know the
details, much details.
And as you know, it's been going
back and forth so many times.
So we really don't the detail.
But what we have to realize is
that this
cessation of hostilities, peace
talks, whatever you want to call it,
it's only possible with freedom
for the Iranian people.
The nature of this regime has not
changed, whether
what they're doing is the result
of basically military
pressure.
So they welcome war,
they want war, they want crisis,
they wanted these kinds of things to
suppress the internal
aspirations of the Iranian People.
So.
They're there because they're forced
to.
The real fight
is actually between the Iranian
people and this regime.
Within the last four days, since
Saturdays till Tuesday,
they have executed 61 people,
61 prisoners.
That is one every three hours.
So they're very scared of the
people, and they're uprising, and
they organize resistance.
That's why they're trying to
intimidate people by increasing
the number of executions in Iran.
We welcome any
effort to
stop the nuclear ambitions of
this regime.
Actually, the NCRI, National Council
of Resistance of Iran, is the one
that in 2002
revealed the atomic sites
and nuclear sites of this region.
So we welcome that.
But again, the actual fight,
the actually peace will happen
between the Iranian people
and this regime, and this regime
is not capable of.
Creating any
lasting peace
for the Iranian people.
We think.
Any economic help to this
regime will also not benefit
the Iranian regime, as it did not
in the past.
During the Obama administration, $6
billion cash was given to
them. Besides another $140
billion that was given,
the Iranian people did not benefit.
Is the IRGC, the corrupt system
in IRGCs.
Used it and also it
it was used for the suppressive
forces of the regime against the
people they bought Anti-riot
weapons, you know any anything
that you can tell the they bought
face recognition cameras
and put all over the streets, so
we basically
think that
As long as this regime is in power,
peace will not be in
the region. This regime will find
some way of cheating any
agreement as they did before.
So we need to support
the Iranian people
to once and for all
get rid of this regime.
That will bring the
lasting peace for the Iranian and
the region in general.
How do you do that
if the superpowers
of the U.S.
And Israel
couldn't.
Well, You cannot
overthrow a regime with
bombing, okay, from
air. It's impossible, especially
a regime
that's ideologically driven.
You need the people inside
Iran, the organized opposition that
we have.
They know every way
there is.
They know the people in side Iran.
They know who is responsible.
I mentioned that in your last
interview with that.
Five days before that
attack that Khamenei
was killed by America,
you know, they bombarded his
compound, the
Iranian opposition, the MEK,
the Mujahideen, how they attacked
with 250 members,
attacked that compound.
Unfortunately, about 100 of them
died, but 150
returned to their bases.
So, there is an organized
opposition inside Iran.
Which is uniting
with Kurds and Baluchis
and other minorities
inside Iran.
And they are the force that they
need to overthrow the regime.
The regime cannot be overthrown with
foreign intervention, especially
from air.
I mean, they need more than
200,000 troops,
boots on the ground to do that
because Iran is full of mountains.
It has 95 million people almost
and it's a large country.
So.
We need to rely on the
Iranian people themselves.
So far the West,
United States, including United
States and the international
community, they have been
appeasing the mullahs.
They need to recognize
the right of the Iranian people and
their opposition to fight this
regime and not help this
regime.
That's the way to do it.
Do you feel as though at this point
the opposition
is in a better place to
take over or?
It is.
It is better.
I mean, regardless of what, you
know, the people who are pro-war
or pro-peace,
the regime is much weaker.
It has lost its leader.
It has a son of that
leader, which we don't know
even if he's alive or not.
It's lost a lot of his
military top
rank officers.
It is much weaker inside
Iran. There's also a division
between factions of regime because
some people are
Saying that why are we having
a peace treaty with a
country that killed a leader?
And then some people were who
know that they have no other way
They have to have some sort of
peace. Otherwise, they'll be you
know in worse
shape so the regime is
much we hear the Iranian people
are are much stronger now
and more organized and there's
a unity between different factions
and different minorities in Iran.
You know, the last
four uprisings in Iran,
one in, I think, was 2019
was for the gas prices that went
up. In 2018, I thing, was price of
chicken that went out.
In 2026, the one that we
saw, it started
from bazaar because the
price of the dollar just increased
a lot. So.
This regime is incapable of
solving the Iranian people's
problems. So as long as the
structure is corrupt and
you cannot address the
basic needs of the Iranian
People, these
uprisings will happen.
It's a matter of time.
And this time, people know
that there is no help
from outside.
Some people were thinking that,
okay, the United States will come
bombard these and these guys will go
away and that's it.
And they bring, let's say, the son
of the Shah, you know, that's
not going to happen.
The people of Iran need to
rise up themselves, and
they do have organized resistance.
They need to basically get
the international community's
recognition.
That's what we need.
We don't need any help,
money. We don't need any soldiers
or boots on the ground from foreign
powers.
We need their recognitions and
their help to.
Basically help the Iranian people.
You spoke to conditions of
the Iranian people after
all of this most
recent warfare,
strikes, killings.
What are the conditions on
the ground for the people in Iran?
They are, um...
They're much worse off, obviously,
financially.
The prices have gone up
huge.
I mean, they've gone up a lot,
and the people are struggling.
A lot of people are struggle
financially.
But I was talking to
a couple of people from Iran.
They're hopeful.
They know that they cannot
wait for anybody from outside.
They need to do everything
themselves. And so they are hopeful.
They were actually, I was a little
bit.
Kind of down and I
was saying well this all this
happened you guys are okay and said
oh no no we're great just you
know we will make it happen so
there is despair as far as
financially but they're
hopeful that you know
the Iranian people will
overcome this regime we have to
because again last 47
years, they have destroyed Iran.
They have.
They have taken it on back
economically about 100 years and
people are fed up with it.
Is there anything you'd like to add
on this?
I want to basically
let everybody know that, as I
said, there's a organized and
well-organized and
opposition
that we're going to have a
demonstration in Paris this
Saturday.
More than 100,000 people are
expected to attend.
And we need to
basically...
Let the world and
the people of Iran and everybody
know that this is happening so
more people can join so
we have a better force to
overthrow this regime.
All right.
Well, thank you and safe
travels.
Thank you. We look forward to
seeing some of
what you might capture there.
Yes, I'll take some videos and
pictures and I'll send you guys.
That is great.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
I will follow up to
send you the
segment when we air it
this Friday.
Thank you, Marcia.
Thank you Marcia, appreciate
it.
All right.
Thank you, sir.
Thank you. Have a good one.
Bye-bye.
Whatever.