Successful fundraising by satellite TV program that broadcasts into Iran was a display of widespread support for Iranian Resistance and residents of Camps Ashraf and Liberty. The telethon was also a show of popular resolve for regime change in Iran

Last night, Simaye-Azadi- Iran National Television (a satellite TV program which broadcast into Iran 24/7) reported that thousands of Iranians from across Iran and 31 countries around the world took part in its four-day telethon, which ended on January 30, 2013. 
Callers contributed a total amounted to $4.137 million (150,307 billion rials) during the telethon, which started in the afternoon of January 26 and continued until 10 a.m. January 30, for a total of 50 hours. Twenty-two telephone lines were made available to the callers, but many contributors had to wait for hours to get through and many never managed to get through.
Despite security risks, Iranians from Tehran and other cities, including Kermanshah, Gilan-gharb, Sar-pol Zahab; Sanandaj and other cities in the Iranian province of Kurdistan (western Iran), Tabriz and other cities in Azerbaijan Province (northwestern Iran), Mashhad, Bojnourd and other cities in Khorassan Province (northeastern Iran), Zahedan and other cities in the southeastern Province of Sistan and Baluchistan; Shiraz and Bushehr (southern Iran); Ahvaz and other cities in Khuzestan Province (southwestern Iran); and the central cities of Karaj, Boroujerd, Isfahan, Shahin-shahr participated in this telethon.
Expatriate Iranians and supporters of the Iranian Resistance as the world over, including from Iraq, Turkey, Bahrain, UAE, Azerbaijan, Russia, Syria, Jordan, Morocco, Egypt, Cyprus, the Philippines, Australia, Canada, the United States, Germany, France, U.K., Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Belgium, Luxemburg, Austria, Romania, and Hungary called to contribute to Simaye-Azadi as an outlet that has overcome the censorship of the mullahs’ regime and the crackdown on the media.
The wide range of contributors included those by young people, women, students, workers, teachers, merchants, factory owners, artists, intellectuals, political prisoners, families of martyrs, prisoners and Ashraf residents, parents and even school children.
Callers contributed anywhere from one dollar to close to half a million dollars.  Artists contributed art works; others contributed their homes and vehicles; women and girls their jewelry, and children broke their piggybanks to give their savings. In addition to their personal contributions, many callers reached out to other compatriots in Iran and abroad to collect their donations.
In their calls, the participants in the telethon voiced their all-out support for the Iranian Resistance and its President-elect, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi. They said that members of the main Iranian opposition, the PMOI/MEK residing in Camps Ashraf and Liberty in Iraq, were the best guarantee for establishment of democracy in the future Iran and that supporting them was a nationalistic and patriotic duty for all Iranians. They condemned the conspiracies against residents of Ashraf and Liberty by the clerical regime and Government of Iraq in collaboration with the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for Iraq, Martin Kobler, and joined the residents in urging that Camp Liberty be declared as a UN refugee camp or alternatively the residents be allowed to return to Camp Ashraf, their home of 26 years.
The telethon demonstrated of the Iranian people’s solidarity with the resistance movement and their steadfast resolve for regime change and the establishment of democracy in Iran.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
January 31, 2013