As reports come in that Iranian officials have arrested several members of the main exiled opposition group, the People’s Mujahedeen of Iran (PMOI), their fellow Mujahadeen have been rallying in Iraq.

3,400 members of the PMOI, a group formed in the 1960s with the aim of overthrowing the Iranian shah, are now living in a camp called Ashraf here in Diyala province, Iraq. The group fled Iran in the 1980s.

Authorities in Tehran “identified and arrested a number of hypocrites who were trained in Ashraf camp in Iraq and entered Iran in order to carry out terrorist actions,” the official Iranian news agency reported.

Officials from the PMOI said on Saturday that, “Simultaneous with…today’s massive gathering of Iranians in Paris in solidarity with the Iranian people’s uprising and in support of the Camp Ashraf residents’ rights, the residents in Ashraf staged their gathering to express support for the demands of the Iranian people’s uprising which has been bloodily suppressed. The residents hailed the ongoing demonstrations inside Iran and the gathering of exiled Iranians in Paris.” They issued pictures of the rally.

- Alice Fordham