Iranian dissidents based in Paris are often the first to hear about the release of French hostages held by the Iranian regime. But the joy that such news brings is always tempered with bitterness — because experience has taught them that such gestures are never without cost. A deal has almost certainly been struck with Tehran, and that deal often comes at the expense of the Iranian Resistance.
Before President Emmanuel Macron officially announced the release of Olivier Grondeau- one of three French hostages held in Iran-on Thursday, March 20, Iranian activists in Paris were already aware. On Monday, March 17, a journalist from a Parisian satirical weekly contacted the office of the Iranian Resistance, asking odd questions about Maryam Rajavi, the movement’ leader’s, travel schedules. Without waiting for a response, the journalist hastily published an article the next day, March 18 — an obvious hit piece aimed at discrediting Rajavi, a woman who has long stood up to the misogynistic clerics of Tehran.
That rush, it seems, was not accidental. Another hostage’s release had been scheduled for Wednesday, and the article was, in essence, part of the transaction — a price to be paid promptly.
The case of Louis Arnaud, another French national who less than a year ago returned from Iran’s infamous Evin prison with chilling accounts of what he witnessed there, further illustrates this truth: every hostage release involves a bargain. Just one week before Arnaud’s release, a Le Monde journalist contacted the Iranian Resistance in Paris, asking about alleged “child soldiers” in the National Liberation Army of Iran, Resistance’s military force in 1990s. For the Resistance, the signal was clear — another negotiation was underway.
Iranian dissidents have never objected to the release of hostages — quite the contrary. But they issue a stark warning:
Don’t feed the crocodile. It won’t be tamed. It will only grow more dangerous. They argue that hostage-taking must be confronted with firmness, not appeasement. Europe has taken this approach before — and it has yielded real results.
Hostage-Taking as a Strategy for Survival
The notorious terrorist Anis Naccache, a Lebanese agent of the Iranian regime who spent ten years in French prisons for murder and attempted assassination, once exposed how the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) leveraged hostage-taking as a tool for blackmail:
“I was in a French prison while operations were being carried out in Beirut. Four French hostages had been taken in Lebanon… One day, someone from the French Foreign Ministry came to see me. He said, ‘I don’t even know if our hostages are still alive.’ I replied, ‘Yes, they are — but on certain conditions.’
First: one billion dollars must be returned to Iran. He said, ‘Alright.’ Then I said: expel Massoud Rajavi from France…”
(State-run Ofogh TV, “Jahan Ara” program — February 11, 2017)
Mohammad Ali Jafari, former commander of the IRGC, also acknowledged in a speech on November 4, 2019, just how essential hostage-taking has been to the regime’s survival:
Without hostage-taking, the Islamic Republic would have collapsed within its first decade.
Referring to the 1979 U.S. Embassy seizure in Tehran, he noted:
Only a few revolutionary officials — including the Supreme Leader himself (Khamenei) — supported this act. But without it, our revolution would not have lasted forty years; it would have ended in its first ten.
The Iranian Resistance’s message is clear:
Prolonging this regime’s rule means prolonging cycles of death and destruction — in Iran, in Gaza, and across the broader Middle East.
Demonizing the Opposition: A Tactic to Delay the Inevitable
In the 1988 massacre, 30,000 political prisoners were executed over a two-month period. The regime sought to permanently eradicate its principal rival, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) — the backbone of the organized Resistance.
In his latest report, Professor Javaid Rehman, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Iran, labeled the 1982 and 1988 mass executions as acts of genocide. He emphasized that the majority of those executed in 1988 were MEK members, targeted solely because of their political, religious, or ethnic affiliations.
The repression hasn’t stopped. Just a few months ago, nine political prisoners were sentenced to death — their primary “crime” being their affiliation with the MEK.
A Woman at the Forefront of Resistance
Maryam Rajavi, leader of the Iranian Resistance, has long confronted a regime that is not only deeply misogynistic but also the world’s top executioner per capita. She has dedicated her life to this cause, never hesitating to pay the price — even when it means enduring relentless smear campaigns.
She leads the fight to abolish the death penalty, to establish a secular, democratic republic, and to build a non-nuclear Iran based on gender equality.
Her goal is to replace hatred with hope. And it is no coincidence that the regime relentlessly targets her — precisely because her vision is gaining ground inside Iran.
The Beginning of the End of Four Decades of Hostage Diplomacy
The fall of Syria’s dictator dealt a strategic and irreparable blow to the Iranian regime. A former head of Iran’s state broadcasting authority described the situation this way:
The domino effect that began in Lebanon passed through Syria and Iraq — and is now heading toward Iran.
Today, thousands of Resistance Units — made up of MEK members and inspired by Maryam Rajavi’s vision of freedom and equality — are active across Iran.
Rooted in their own towns and neighborhoods, they are capable of turning any spark into an uprising and mobilizing street power to confront the IRGC head-on.
The regime’s continued efforts to demonize the Resistance are aimed at dismantling this force — because it is the one force capable of overthrowing it.
It is no accident that some media outlets, often lacking serious analysis, label this movement — one that has resisted clerical dictatorship for over forty years, lost more than 100,000 of its members, and leads thousands of local resistance units — as a “cult.”
The truth is, the mullahs’ regime is doing everything in its power to escape an end it knows is inevitable. To delay the fall, it relies on well-placed lobbyists in international institutions and continues its campaign of vilification against the Iranian Resistance and its leadership.
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