1. Maryam Rajavi is an Iranian dissident politician and the leader of the People's Mujahedin of Iran, an organization advocating the overthrow of the Iranian government, and president-elect of its National Council of Resistance of Iran.
16 Facts About Maryam Rajavi
1. 2.
Maryam Rajavi is married to Massoud Rajavi, who is the co-leader of MEK.
3.
Maryam Rajavi attended the Sharif University of Technology in Iran, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in metallurgy.
4.
Maryam Rajavi served as an organizer of the anti-Shah student movement in the 1970s.
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In 1982, Maryam Rajavi was transferred to Auvers-sur-Oise, Ile-de-France where the political headquarters of the Mojahedin was located.
6.
In 1985, Maryam Rajavi was made co-leader of the MEK, and a month later she divorced her husband of five years and fellow MEK member Mehdi Abrishamchi in order to marry her MEK co-leader Massoud Maryam Rajavi in Paris.
7.
Between 1989 and 1993, Maryam Rajavi served as the Secretary General On 22 October 1993, the NCRI then elected Maryam Rajavi to be "Iran's interim President" if the NCRI were to assume power in Iran.
8.
In October 2011, Theresa May banned Maryam Rajavi from coming to Britain in a trip where she was to "explain how women are mistreated in Iran".
9.
Maryam Rajavi publicly met with the President of the State of Palestine Mahmoud Abbas on 30 July 2016 in Paris, France.
10.
Maryam Rajavi presented her plan at the Council of Europe in 2006, which supports complete gender equality in political and social rights and, specifically, a commitment to equal participation of women in political leadership.
11.
In July 2021, Maryam Rajavi organized a rally in Berlin to protest the election of Ebrahim Raisi as President of Iran.
12.
Maryam Rajavi called Raisi the "henchman" of the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners in 1988.
13.
Maryam Rajavi was joined in the protest by former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who expressed his support for Rajavi and the National Council of Resistance of Iran.
14.
Maryam Rajavi calls for the abolition of the death penalty, the creation of a modern legal system and the independence of judges.
15.
In 2024 Maryam Rajavi said in a statement that Ebrahim Raisi's death "represents a monumental and irreparable strategic blow to the mullahs' supreme leader Ali Khamenei and the entire regime, notorious for its executions and massacres".
16.
On 17 June 2003, Maryam Rajavi was arrested by Paris Police Prefecture alongside some 150 MEK members.