Mike Pence and Liz Truss among VIPs speaking at Iranian dissident rally despite pressure from Tehran

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Thousands of Iranian dissidents took to the streets of a Parisian neighborhood on Saturday as Western opponents of the Tehran government gathered for a politically star-studded event aimed at putting their heads together. finger in the eye of Ayatollah supporters.

Despite warnings from French authorities and the US Embassy in Paris that alleged threats of a terrorist attack made a major event unwise outdoors, there were no incidents over the weekend as Iranian dissident activists mingled with prominent current and former officials from the US, UK and other European countries. If this threat of a terrorist attack was real, it was difficult to spot the concern of the French authorities on Saturday, given that the police only provided a handful of officers to patrol the area, those present said. at The Independent. .

Dissidents from the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK) have long had troubled relations with the West, in addition to their long campaign against the Iranian government. This year is no exception to this dynamic. Formerly classified as a terrorist group by the United States, the MEK now resides in Albania, where just weeks ago a massive police raid was blamed for the death of a senior MEK official while others were seriously injured - all, according to the MEK, at the request of the Iranian government. On the same day, French authorities decided to call off Saturday's rally.

Various explanations for the raid were offered in the hours that followed, but over the weekend a senior Iranian official tweeted that computers seized from the MEK by Albanian police had been transferred to Iranian custody, a development first reported on Monday. A senior NCRI official fumed over the news in a statement to The Independent, demanding that the US State Department take a stance on Albania's collaboration with Iranian intelligence agencies; the Biden administration previously reacted to the raid calling it a police action while carefully avoiding any suggestion of Iranian involvement.

The Independent contacted the State Department for comment on the news of the computers being transferred to Iranian custody. The agency previously released a brief statement following the raid describing it...