The group originated in the early 1950s, after the 1953 coup d'état against the government of Dr. Mohammad Mossadeq who was Prime Minister of Iran from April 1951 to August 1953 (with a very brief interruption in July 1952). That coup brought down Mossadegh and his colleagues from power and reinstalled the Shah as the dominant force in Iranian politics. The newly installed government quickly rounded up Mossadegh's closest supporters, outlawing freedom of expression and cracking down on free political activity. Mossadegh himself was placed before a military court and sentenced to three years in prison. A group of low-ranking leaders from the Mossadegh era quickly formed an underground organization calling itself the National Resistance Movement (NRM). It is significant in the context of the FMI's history because this reincarnation of the National Front (the umbrella group for Mossadegh's supporters) was constituted mainly of religious laymen, which differentiated it from the secular members of the banned National Front, including Mossadegh himself. The NRM campaigned for the 1954 Majlis to be free and fair (they were not) and attempted