European politicians urge EU to make diplomatic and trade relations with #Iran contingent on end to torture and executions

In a meeting at the European Parliament on Wednesday (6 December), European politicians called on the European Union to make the 28 member states’ diplomatic and trade relations with Tehran contingent on improvements to the Iranian human rights record and specifically an end to torture and executions.

Gerard Deprez, a member of European Parliament from Belgium and chairman of Friends of a Free Iran (FOFI) presided over the meeting. FOFI is an informal group in the European Parliament which was formed in 2003 and enjoys the active support of many MEPs from various political groups.

Participants in the meeting strongly condemned the Iranian regime’s destructive meddling throughout the region including in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen and its support for extremist proxy militias and terrorist groups. They pointed out the Iranian regime’s continued ballistic missile tests in defiance of UN Security Council Resolution 2231.

The meeting took place in the run-up to International Human Rights Day on 10 December, and so the MEPs highlighted flagrant and systematic human-rights violations by the Iranian regime, which have continued unabated during the tenure of President Hassan Rouhani.

When Rouhani started his second term in August, Iran remained the nation with the world’s highest number of executions per capita. His new justice minister has been on the EU sanctions list since 2011 for human rights violations. Both the current minister and his predecessor during Rouhani’s first term were among senior officials directly involved in the massacre of political prisoners in 1988.

More than 30,000 political prisoners were executed in the summer of that year, the overwhelming majority of them activists of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, the principal Iranian opposition movement.

Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (pictured, centre), was the keynote speaker at Wednesday’s event. She described the country’s financial structure as being on the brink of collapse and he observed that there are growing signs of popular desire for regime change in Iran.

Two weeks ago, the regime’s interior minister admitted that some 150 acts of protest take place in the country every day and a nationwide protest movement has been growing for the past year among people whose assets have been plundered by government-backed financial institutions. These protests have on numerous occasions turned into political protests against the regime in its entirety.

According to Rajavi, the movement calling for justice for the victims of the 1988 massacre has turned into an expansive social movement since 18 months ago when the Iranian Resistance started actively organizing it.

The NCRI President-elect said that the steady growth of public discontent has been met with more suppression and more executions. She added that Tehran’s effort to expand its meddling abroad does not reflect the regime’s strength but its deep internal crisis, which it tries to cover up by expanding its influence in the region. Indeed, it seeks to put up a hollow show of force to discourage the international community from adopting a decisive and firm policy against it.

Rajavi pointed out that as long as the international community fails to hold the Iranian regime accountable for its destructive behavior, the mullahs will carry on with their dangerous adventures. The correct response, she said, is firmness, not giving concessions.

The Iranian opposition leader said the EU can play a positive role in peace and stability in the Middle East and as such should hold the Iranian regime accountable for its crimes against the people of Iran and particularly for the massacre in 1988. It should demand immediate expulsion of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its proxies from Syria and other countries in the region, as well as an immediate halt to the regime’s ballistic missile program. Failure to comply with these demands should result in severe sanctions on the regime’s oil exports and loss of access to international banking system.

Rajavi concluded by reiterating that the people of Iran want fundamental change and that regime change by the Iranian people is within reach.

Other participants in Wednesday’s meeting criticized the accommodating policy pursued by EU Foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini vis-à-vis Iran. They stressed that Tehran not only has not changed its conduct but has become more intransigent subsequent to the nuclear agreement signed in 2015. They called for a firm and principled policy on Iran by the EU that puts human rights at its core.

During the meeting, details of the Iranian regime’s relationships with Sunni and Shiite terrorist groups in various countries were examined.

Struan Stevenson, former president of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations and current chairman of the Brussels based NGO the European Iraqi Freedom Association, presented the association’s newly published 25-page report which detailed the extensive links between the Iranian regime and Sunni extremist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS.

“During the Soviet era, communists around the world were divided into a multitude of factions like Marxists, Leninists, Trotskyists and Maoists,” Stevenson said. “They disagreed and fought with each other constantly. But ultimately, they all regarded Moscow as the godfather of international communism.”

“The same applies to Islamic fundamentalism today. They are split into a thousand factions, like the Taliban, al-Qaeda, Daesh, Boko Haram, Hezbollah and other terrorist groups and they all fight like cats in a sack. But they all look to Tehran as the godfather of fundamentalist Islam. Just as the collapse of the Soviet Union saw the virtual end of aggressive communist expansionism, so the collapse of the mullah’s regime will bring an end to the spread of Islamist terror across the globe.”

Stevenson concluded: “For those of us who hold human rights dear, we have to support the Iranian resistance under the leadership of Mrs. Maryam Rajavi and the only legitimate democratic opposition movement, the PMOI/NCRI, to liberate the beleaguered Iranian people, who ache and pray for the removal of this corrupt and evil regime and the restoration of human rights, women’s rights, freedom, justice and democracy to their long-suffering nation.”

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