Anna Bonfrisco, MEP from Italy and member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, addressed a webinar by European lawmakers on October 7, 2020, on the human rights situation in Iran.
Online Conference held under title, “Iran’s Ongoing Crimes Against Humanity, EU’s political and moral obligations”. The online event was on October 7, 2020. Dozens of members of the European Parliament attended and spoke at the conference.
MEPs made their remarks in order to condemn the horrific human rights violations witnessed on a daily basis across Iran. In addition, MEPs called on the European Union to fulfill its moral and political obligations in the face of human rights violations in Iran. They called for a firm policy by the European Union against the mullah regime in Iran. Also, they pointed out, It is high time to stand alongside the Iranian people and support their justified aspirations for a free, democratic, and non-nuclear Iran.
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran(NCRI), was the keynote speaker at this conference. Her message welcomed as a democratic solution to Iran’s future. Mrs. Rajavi’s ten-point plan has widespread support from the majority of MEPs for a long time.
Anna Bonfrisco, MEP from Italy and member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
Thank you for inviting me, dear friends, of Iranian resistance. I wanted to speak in this meeting even through a video because today’s the World Day Against Death Penalty.
The violation of human rights of the freedom cannot be considered as an internal affair of a country but must concern all of us. Citizens, governments, Parliament’s, and Coronavirus have shown how interconnected we are and how the internal affairs of a country are also the affairs of all of us. How many infections, how many deaths, how many tests have been done in Iran? We will never know that for sure. If we had known what was happening in China at the beginning of the year, we would have acted much better.
As a parliamentarian, I am concerned. But I am fighting against the opportunistic silence of many European governments, including the Italian one which seem to put the interests of the political and economic interests before the interests of oppressed people. I am troubled when I see a great people such as the Iranian people powerless before all the actions against those who oppose the regime. They must be helped from outside. We must help those who raise their voice.
Media pressure, opinion pressure, and political pressure could be ongoing. We should not intervene just to censor executions, which are shameless, such as Navid Afkari‘s execution, the wrestler who was executed because he had taken part in protests.
Or such as a woman lawyer, we all remember Nasrin Sotoudeh. She was sentenced to 38 years in prison and 150 whips without having had even a defense lawyer. Now she is in hospital because of a hunger strike, a non-violent fight to react to the recent arrest of her daughter who is only 20 years of age.
Dear Iranian friends in Europe who are witnessing these injustices against your people, I want to tell you that you’re not alone. Your country is in an enviable position and it can have a determining role, which is young people who are the majority of your 80 million inhabitants.
We must help you also through internet and social media. We must help young Iranians to take back their future which is made of freedom and respect of human rights.
