The Telegraph, Jan. 9, 2017 – Iranian exiled opposition reacted to the death of Hashemi Rafsanjani. Maryam Rajavi, the leader of the political arm of the Iranian opposition group Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, said in a statement that she hoped the Islamic Republic would fall apart with Rafsanjani’s passing. “With the death of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the two pillars and keys to the equilibrium of the religious fascism ruling Iran has collapsed and the regime in its entirety is approaching overthrow,” she said. The group, known by the acronym MEK, was listed as a terrorist organization by the State Department for years over its killing of Americans. It says it renounced violence in 2001.
In Saudi Arabia, which is Shiite power Iran’s greatest regional rival, noticeably did not immediately send condolences over Rafsanjani’s death. One of its state-run television channels aired an interview with an MEK official that linked Rafsanjani to the mass execution of thousands of prisoners at the end of the country’s bloody war with Iraq in 1988.