Struan Stevenson, former MEP, president of the Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iraq (2009-14) and chairman of the EP Friends of a Free Iran Intergroup (2004-14), 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.
Struan Stevenson, former MEP, president of the Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iraq (2009-14) and chairman of the EP Friends of a Free Iran Intergroup (2004-14)
Sixty million Iranians are now living below the international poverty line. The grinding privation and penury has driven people to sell their livers, kidneys and even their corneas for cash. Sick organ traders are exploiting the poor to rake in huge profits. The Iranian currency – the rial – is in freefall. It has lost 49% of its value so far this year, as the US ramps up economic pressure with renewed sanctions. Iran, as one of the world’s leading oil and gas producers, now has one of the world’s most worthless currencies, with hyper-inflation topping 34.4% annually. Forty-one years of venal corruption, dim-witted incompetence and brutal oppression by the fascist Iranian government has brought this once prosperous and successful nation to its knees. Revolution is in the air.
When the theocratic regime announced a massive threefold hike in gasoline prices in November 2019, millions of poor Iranians took to the streets in protest. The mullahs’ predictable reaction was to order their Gestapo, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards corps (IRGC) and their internal security thugs – the Basij – to brutally suppress the nationwide uprising. Black-clad and masked IRGC snipers gunned down unarmed protesters from the rooftops of government buildings, shooting to kill. Basij goons beat young demonstrators with batons. 1,500 protesters were killed, thousands more were wounded.
The IRGC dragged injured protesters from their hospital beds. They were taken to specially prepared torture centers where many perished. Over 12,000 were arrested and thrown into the regime’s medieval prisons. Dozens have been sentenced to death for daring to challenge the authority of the fascist dictatorship. The execution of political prisoners has become almost a daily event, as the ‘so-called’ moderate President Hassan Rouhani, in his absurd speech to the UN General Assembly, proclaimed that “Political freedom at home is very important to us, and as the most ancient democracy in the Middle East, we are proud of our democracy, and we will not compromise our freedoms with foreign intervention.” His pathological lies have fooled no-one inside Iran.
The seething resentment and antipathy to the clerical regime has begun to boil over. Poverty-stricken Iranians are appalled that their government continues to pour money and military personnel into Syria in support of Bashar al-Assad’s bloody civil war. They are horrified that the mullahs are funneling endless Iranian cash to the Houthi rebels in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the vicious Shi’ia militias in Iraq. They are shocked to learn that vast resources are being channelled into the secret production of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, despite Rouhani’s international denials. And they are dismayed that corruption and incompetence has seen the death toll from COVID-19 soar to over 116,000 nationwide.
Resistance units of the main, democratic opposition movement, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) have been formed in every town and city in the country. Sporadic outbursts of anger and protests against the regime have occurred daily, with defiant youths torching and vandalizing regime-affiliated sites.
The execution of the young wrestling champion Navid Afkari, despite a global campaign to stop his judicial murder, has sparked renewed fury across the nation. His hanging outraged young Iranians who regarded Afkari as a sporting hero. Young resistance fighters have attacked courthouses, government buildings and IRGC and Basij bases in towns and cities throughout Iran. A centre for promoting fundamentalist Islam was torched in the city of Karaj. Banners, posters and images of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and of the terrorist IRGC Quds Force General Qassem Soleimani, killed by a drone strike in January, have been repeatedly targeted and set on fire by protesters. Marchers in street protests routinely chant slogans such as “The Supreme Leader’s end is near,” and “Rise up to avenge Navid’s execution.” Anti-regime slogans and messages from the Iranian Resistance leader Massoud Rajavi, and President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) Maryam Rajavi regularly appear on walls and hoardings.
As resistance to the mullahs continues to grow across Iran, there are increasing demands for the international community to end their policy of appeasement and show their support for the Iranian people. The ongoing torture and execution of political prisoners is a crime against humanity and continues because the United Nations has singularly failed to hold the mullahs’ regime to account for the massacre of over 30,000 political prisoners, mostly supporters of the PMOI/MEK, in 1988.
Although there is irrefutable evidence of this horrendous crime, which even senior figures in the regime openly admit and boast about, no-one has yet been indicted for this horror, one of the worst cases of genocide of the late twentieth century.
The revolution is coming and when it does, the mullahs will face justice and those in the international community who have sought to appease them will be held answerable and shamed in the court of public opinion.
