By JOSEPH KELLARD
Saatchi, however, also demonstrates to get that organization, the People's Mujahedeen, recognized as a legitimate movement dedicated to toppling the Iranian theocracy and establishing a democracy. This was Saatchi's purpose when he joined a rally of 20,000 strong outside the United Nations headquarters in Manhattan Sept. 14, days before Iran's recently elected president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, spoke before the international body.
Carrying Iran's tri-colored flag and portraits of their leaders who opposing the Iranian regime, more than 40 Iranian-American organizations rallied under the umbrella of the New York Committee against Ahmadinejad. Saatchi belongs to the fledgling Americans for Democracy in the Middle East (ADME), an organization that touts itself as championing freedom throughout the region, with an emphasis on Iran.
In the days prior to past rallies, when other Iranian government officials appeared at the U.N., FBI agents made visits to Saatchi Jewelry, on Austin Boulevard, to tell its owner not to participate, Saatchi said. Despite also being arrested at these rallies, he has been undeterred by the warnings and incidents.
Saatchi, the ADME and the other organizations at the Sept. 14 rally charge that Ahmadinejad was a student leader during Iran's Islamic Revolution that led, in 1979, to the storming of the U.S. Embassy and the taking of 52 Americans hostages for 444 days. "Each time he comes to the U.N., he paints himself a little better," said Saatchi, who, before the rally, posted fliers on his store's front door that sport photos of Ahmadinejad and read "terrorist," "hostage taker," "executioner" and "assassin." While a classified CIA assessment concluded that Ahmadinejad did not play a major role in the embassy takeover, Saatchi points to former hostages who demand that the report be made public, because they believe it unjustly clears him.
Rabbi Daniel Zucker of Congregation Beth Sholom in Long Beach, a member of ADME's board of directors and a long-time patron of Saatchi Jewelry, described Saatchi as the single most involved Iranian-American devoted to bringing down the Iranian leadership. "He spends a large part of his income, literally thousands of dollars monthly, to try to free his homeland," Zucker said.
Since the Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini's Islamic fundamentalist regime took power in 1979, Saatchi has lost 80 members of his extended family to the Iranian regime, he said. They were either executed or forced to fight in the war against Iraq in the 1980s, he explained. Saatchi has many relatives still living in Iran, including eight aunts, seven uncles and 100 cousins.
"It's dangerous for them to keep in touch with me," Saatchi said. "The people of Iran are suffering from this government."
In 1981, while still living in Iran, Saatchi joined a demonstration of some half a million Iranians in Tehran who opposed Khomeini's regime. Khomeini ordered a crackdown, and members of the Revolutionary Guard opened fire, reportedly killing dozens and wounding hundreds, while thousands were arrested. Because he supported the opposition, Saatchi was arrested and jailed overnight. Later, the regime confiscated his jewelry store in Tehran.
Fearing for his life, Saatchi obtained passports on the black market and fled his native land with his wife, Azita, who was then eight months pregnant with their son, Sasha, and their 3-year-old son, Sami. After reaching Germany, the Saatchis lived in Italy, Liberia and Britain before entering the U.S. and moving in with relatives in Brookville. Saatchi has owned his jewelry store in Island Park for 18 years.
Meanwhile, Iran's Islamic regime annually tops the U.S. State Department's report on state sponsors of terrorism. The regime has been accused of backing attacks on Americans ranging from the bombing of a military barracks that killed 241 Marines in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1983 to an explosion at the Khobar Towers military facility in Saudi Arabia in 1996 in which 19 U.S. servicemen died.
Since Khomeini¹s revolution 26 years ago, Saatchi has devoted much of his time to supporting the People's Mujahedeen, an Iraq-based expatriate resistance movement with 5,000 armed fighters dedicated to overthrowing Iran's ruling mullahs and ayatollahs. Zucker described the organization's political ideology as championing "a modern, secular democracy with a separation of mosque and state."
"People's Mujahedeen doesn't need any help," Saatchi explained. "We don't need any money, we don't need any arms, just we need not to appease the ayatollahs and recognize us as a legitimate movement."
During the 1990s, the State Department put People's Mujahedeen on its terrorists list, accusing the organization of numerous bombings in Iran. Saatchi, Zucker and other supporters claim this is a misleading characterization, saying the organization's aggression inside Iran has only targeted the regime, and that it was put on the State Department list as part of the Clinton administration's appeasement of the "moderate" government elected in 1997.
"With this regime, I never believe in any reform or moderation," Saatchi said, adding that the theocrats have sent 30,000 aggressors from the Iranian military into American-occupied Iraq.
ADME is dedicated to pressuring President Bush to cease what it sees as a continuing policy of appeasement, in which European nations negotiate with the regime over its pursuit of a nuclear weapons program. The regime claims the program is strictly for energy purposes. Meanwhile, when Ahmadinejad spoke at the U.N. days after the Sept. 14 rally, he vowed that Iran would continue its nuclear program, and that his government would share its technology with other Muslim nations.
With the rally covered by such news outlets as the BBC, Reuters and the Associated Press, Saatchi's wife believes it had a positive effect on Americans and Europeans, making them more likely to put pressure on Iran. "They saw 20,000 people were out saying they don't want this regime, and that they now can stand up to the regime more firmly," Azita said. "The more they see this, the more likely the regime will go, because the people [don't] want it."
The Saatchis are encouraged that last Friday, a week after the rally, Britain proposed that Iran's government be reported to the U.N. Security Council for failing to comply with treaties regarding its nuclear program.
Before the rally, Saatchi promoted the even around the clock, getting about 10 hours sleep in the final three days leading up to it, Zucker said. Though the rally was scheduled to start at 11 a.m., Saatchi took a train into Manhattan at 2 a.m. to provide in various ways for the people who were to join him.
"Max is the type of person," Zucker concluded, "who will literally do anything to help you in his dedication to his cause."
Comments about this story? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 287.
