Dr. Ramesh Sepehrrad

It's a pleasure to be with you.

Thanks for having me.

Yes, I think the movement inside Iran, movement for a free Iran, has really made the question and has a very clear and a core message for the international community that Iran is no longer a question of reform or diplomacy, but it is a question of who really holds the legitimate power, which is the people of Iran.

If you look at

the waves of nationwide uprising.

Since 2017, there has been a number of massive uprising across Iran.

And what's really in common among all of these uprisings and protests is calling to end the regime with the slogans of down to the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, and call for freedom, call for democracy, and call for

a free and a republic Iran, where it is no longer a question of if we want to change, Iran is going to be a restoration back to a monarchy, but moving forward where the people of Iran hold that power going forward.

So obviously the regime has not been sitting idle.

They have been executing people, they have been arresting people, trying to really resort back to all of the

fear factors and intimidation tactics, but they have not been able to really disempower this growing movement for change.

And, you know, obviously, youth and women have a very critical and a central role to this change.

But what's really emerging over the past several years is this notion of the network of resistance units.

And it is a network that is coordinated, that is orchestrating efforts, that is organized and is very clear on how and why they target the regime.

And they have a tremendous support from the public.

So I think Iran's Free Iran Movement has really evolved to a point with clarity, with a clear network, and also a message for the world that

When we're thinking about a change in Iran, Iranian people are not looking for a foreign military intervention.

They are not looking for funding or weapons or troops on the ground.

And they're not looking for a puppet regime that can be imported from an external power.

But what they have instead is an organized uprising.