Amid attacks, Iran's exiled opposition remained divided but who are they?

Straits Times

27-06-2025

Overthrowing the government in Iran has been a goal of some in the Iranian diaspora too. PHOTO: REUTERS
TEHRAN - After 12 days of devastating Israeli attacks, the stability of Iran's government is a subject of intense debate. And some in Israel and the United States have pressed not just for the destruction of Iran's nuclear program but for 'regime change'.
Overthrowing the government in Iran has been a goal of some in the Iranian diaspora too, ever since the 1979 revolution that deposed the shah and replaced the monarchy with a theocratic Islamic Republic. The war has amplified a range of voices in the opposition abroad, which has a history of infighting as well as organised online harassment of journalists, academics and others that has escalated at times into threats of physical violence.
Here are a few of the overseas voices opposed to the Islamic Republic – and how they have responded to the conflict.
Decentralised activist groups
Iranians in the diaspora who oppose the Islamic Republic include exiled leftists, nationalists, secular democrats, former prisoners, journalists, human rights advocates and artists.
This loose network lacks organisational structure, according to Mr Taghi Rahmani, a prominent dissident who lives in Paris. But he said it has been effective in calling attention to human rights abuses in Iran with protests around the world, and voicing the demands of ordinary Iranians seeking change.
These activists typically have connections to dissident groups and unions in Iran, as well as women's rights activists, teachers, lawyers, workers and students, and often take cues from them.
Most have condemned the Israeli attacks on Iran, and were especially suspicious of Israel's campaign because of the high civilian death toll in the Gaza Strip, said Ms Sahar Delijani, an author who was born in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison in 1983, while both of her parents were imprisoned as political activists.
'If people are claiming that war would bring regime change, they're not interested in democracy,' she said. 'There are so many people in Iran who have been fighting for a long time. War only undermines their efforts.'
Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran's deposed shah
Mr Pahlavi, whose father was the country's last shah, has been among the most visible opposition figures over the past two weeks.
In a flurry of media appearances and social media posts, Mr Pahlavi, 64, who lives in the United States, has called Israel's strikes on Iran 'an opportunity' to topple Iran's supreme leader and institute a 'secular democracy.' Calling himself Iran's 'crown prince,' he presents himself as a candidate to lead that transition.
'This is our Berlin Wall moment,' Mr Pahlavi said at a news conference he organised in Paris on Monday.
Mr Pahlavi's remarks during the war, including that 'anything that weakens the regime' would be 'welcome,' have provoked a backlash even among some supporters of his late father, who say he is out of touch with the reality inside Iran.
Some experts question Mr Pahlavi's claims to legitimacy, the degree of support for him in Iran and the feasibility of his vision.
'I have not seen any evidence of what he claims of his organisational capability inside Iran,' said Professor Mohsen Milani, a political scientist at the University of Florida. 'Nor have I seen any evidence that when he calls for people to demonstrate, people actually take to the streets and follow his guidance.'
Mr Pahlavi does have some support in places such as Los Angeles, where many exiled Iranians moved during and after the 1979 revolution, said Mr Nader Hashemi, a professor of Middle East and Islamic politics at Georgetown University.
Some of his supporters have targeted those who raise questions about his agenda, including journalists, with online harassment campaigns and threats of violence.
'I think the goal is to control the narrative,' said Ms Negar Mortazavi, an Iranian American journalist who said she had received threats over her coverage.
Representatives for Mr Pahlavi did not respond to a request for comment.
The Mujahedeen Khalq
The Mujahedeen Khalq, a group that was once a US-designated terrorist organisation and accused by former members of operating like a cult, has sought to rehabilitate its reputation in recent years.
Founded in 1965 inside Iran as an armed dissident group, the Mujahedeen Khalq helped overthrow the shah. But after the revolution, it broke with Iran's new clerical leaders, who suppressed the group in a sweeping campaign of arrests and executions.
Much of what remained of the organisation fled to Iraq, where they sided with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, a move many Iranians saw as treason.
By then, the group's ideology, which began by blending Islamism and Marxism, had begun to center on its leaders, Massoud and Maryam Rajavi. Former members have said they were told to renounce marriage and divorce their spouses to prove their devotion to them.
The group, also known as the MEK, has denied such claims and says many of its critics are Iranian spies. Massoud Rajavi has not been seen since 2003. Representatives for the group, mostly based in Albania, and Maryam Rajavi did not respond to an interview request.
She said this month that Israel's attack on Iran 'represents the beginning of a critical new chapter, both in Iran's internal crisis and the broader dynamics of the region'.
The US State Department designated the MEK a terrorist organisation in 1997, five years after the group staged coordinated attacks on Iranian diplomatic posts in multiple countries, including the Iranian mission to the United Nations. But the MEK renounced violence some time after the US invasion of Iraq, and the designation was lifted in 2012.
Maryam Rajavi's official platform now calls for a 'secular republic,' gender equality and a nonnuclear Iran. Prominent US politicians have received tens of thousands of dollars for speaking at the group's conferences.
But Prof Hashemi said: 'The MEK has next-to-zero popularity in Iran. In my scholarly judgment, the MEK has more supporters in Washington DC, than in Iran.' NYTIMES
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