MEDIA ADVISORY

Contacts: Medea Benjamin | CODEPINK | [email protected] | 415 235 6517

Lily Tajaddini | CODEPINK | [email protected] | 240 498 4218

CODEPINK Summit kicks off new campaign to counter U.S. sanctions on Iran

December 1, 2018 - In the face of ever tightening U.S. sanctions against Iran, the peace group CODEPINK is hosting a one-day summit on Saturday, December 1 to launch a new campaign for humanitarian aid to Iran, engagement with the Iranian people, a push for the US to rejoin the nuclear deal and normal trade relations with Iran. The new campaign will also work to expose and counter the dangerous agenda of the warhawks in government, in the Iranian-American community and in political office.

The summit comes at a time where tensions between U.S and Iran are escalating. The reimposition of sanctions following the unilateral US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal is causing tremendous hardship for the Iranian people.

“With growing public opposition to US support for Saudi Arabia, which is a staunch enemy of Iran, there is a new opening for revising U.S. Middle East policy,” said Medea Benjamin, author of Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic.” “While the Trump administration defends Saudi Arabia and blames all the conflicts in the region on Iran, many people have started to question whether Iran is truly the number one state sponsor of terrorism.”

Speakers at the summit will include Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff of Secretary of State Colin Powell; Jamal Abdi, President of the National Iranian American Council, author Trita Parsi; Mana Kharrazi, Executive Director of the Iranian Alliances Across Borders, and many others.