Iran opposition says Raisi victory shows regime weakness

PARIS: A leading Iranian exiled opposition group on Saturday held a hybrid physical and virtual meeting it said was unprecedented in scope, lambasting incoming president Ebrahim Raisi as a "henchman" of the regime whose election showed its weakness.

The event linked thousands of members of the People’s Mujahedin Organisation of Iran (MEK/PMOI) at their camp in Albania with supporters across the world online including US senators, British MPs and French lawmakers as well as protests in cities including Berlin.

The MEK, whose political wing is the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), is proscribed in Iran and seeks the "overthrow" of Iran’s clerical leadership. It accuses Raisi of being responsible for the mass executions of thousands of its members in 1988.

"The mullahs’ regime is at an impasse... the Iranian people are nearing victory and will liberate Iran," the NCRI’s president Maryam Rajavi told the event from its Ashraf 3 camp in Albania.

"We are standing at a watershed moment when everything is possible," she added, referring to the coronavirus pandemic and Iran’s economic crisis.